Displacement
by Egnoder
Summary: This is a story of Harry and Hermione falling through time as an attempt to flee the trap that was the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. They end up 28 years in the past but before they even realize that, they meet Andromeda Black and Ted Tonks together in a closet. Things continue to be difficult as they're forced to meet the Headmaster and be accepted as 5th year transfers.
1. Escaping the Trap

**\- Author's Note: This story takes place in a setting where Hermione's drive for studying rubbed off on Harry Potter, leaving him more knowledge and as a result, and has developed more of a strategic thought pattern that only impeded by his luck always requiring him to improvise. This is entirely written and checked-over by only me, so I am bound to miss somethings. Any questions or comments about characters, plot, or grammar/problems with how it is written are** **appreciated** **. I am working on two stories at the moment, both are Harry Potter stories, and I will be updating whichever I have worked on the most (To allow me to keep some buffer room so that if I hit and writers block I can still release a few chapters while I figure things out.). I expect to post every 7-10 days, earlier if I am on a roll like I currently am with Displacement, the other story about accidental time travel and trying not to change the past.**

 **I prefer three to four thousand word chapters for reading things online and will attempt not to suddenly cut the story off to fit this range. I write with a style that will often change perspectives of characters, sometimes overlapping on an event, with the narration from their active perspective as if the reader is a passenger to their thoughts. Spells that are being cast that are written in bold to represent the power and magic of the words and spell.**

 **\- Story Summary: When Harry received a splitting headache and visions of his godfather being tortured, he did more than simply barging into the Department of Mysteries. He came up with a PLAN! Well, he thought of most of one and most of his defense club help refine it. Most of the people he trained with jokingly called themselves Slappers after another of Hermione's poor attempt at** **an acronyms** **: Strategic Learning and Preparedness Training. Their plan had worked, Harry was an excellent decoy, so great that the Death Eaters had only attacked him and Hermione, leaving the others to sneak away with the** **prophecy. While pinned down, the two take accidentally end up twenty eight years in the past and to try not to change anything, as they believe they are already part of the past and any attempt to change the future as they know it would result in terrible consequences.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 1 - Escaping the Trap_

The shattering of glass roused the attention of Harry Potter. As his focus went to the bits of glitter and shards of glass, he started to hear a muffled sound. It crescendoed until he realized that the sound was Hermione yelling at him get down behind some cover. He briefly wondered why she was yelling about sheets before the situation snapped to focus and he dove behind a workbench with Hermione. One of the Death Eaters must have stunned him. "Sorry about that. What did I miss?" he said as he blindly launched a few spells over the top of the counter at the encroaching enemies.

Hermione hissed, "Harry! Now is not the time for jokes!" The anger was missing from her eyes, as he had pulled her back from starting to panic.

"I remember, Hermione," he paused to send one of Voldemort's mooks flying with a spell, "Department of Mysteries. Saving Sirius. The prophecy. The trap." He thought for a moment and realized that he didn't know any blanket effect spells, his offense was all point and shoot.

"Damn, wish I had time to train us for this type of situation. Never realized it isn't all one-on-one's and small scale encounters," he mumbled to himself as he peeked over their cover. The blueprints on the counter looked like they were of time turners but they exploded in spell fire before he could be sure. He dropped back down behind the table, "Any clever ideas to get us out of this? I know we said we'd distract them, I just didn't figure all of them would take the bait."

"NOT REALLY! HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM WHEN THERE ARE TEN DEATH EATERS ATTACKING US?" she yelled back as she launched a quick series of stunning and binding curses.

"Nine now," Harry joked has he heard the thud of a body hitting the stone floor hard followed by groans of pain. Hermione snorted at his cavalier attitude before teaming up with Harry to shield him while he attacked.

"GETTING DESPERATE HERE!" Harry yelled as all of his spells were knocked aside by shields in an attempt to force his brain to come up with an idea. He didn't even notice that he stopped swinging his wand about while he was casting spells and was just spewing out magic with a word and a jab. "WHY. WON'T. YOU. JUST. GET. DISARMED?" he cried out, throwing the same spell with each word, ignoring the onslaught of spells flying towards him. Several curses grazed him through Hermione's protection. He trusted her to keep them safe.

Hermione was concentrating on maintaining the shield as the cornered animal in Harry bucked against its aggressors. She heard one of his spells finally connect with a minion when a grunt of pain and the sound of a body colliding with a wall broke through the casting sounds. What surprised her was the scream of pain and the raucous crash that came from the enemy ranks along with more screaming. Her focus slipped as Harry murmured, "Oops, seven and, ah, maybe, a quarter remaining." Hermione spared a glance around the workbench and saw a crumpled body in one corner that had knocked over a humongous grandfather clock that had a third Death Eater pinned down, crushing his legs. Another one had fallen to his knees and was clutching at his shoulder, screaming in pain and staring at his severed arm in front of him. It had been cut off by a stray spell from one of the downed Death Eaters.

Hermione almost gagged at the sight of the dismembered limb before she steeled herself and saw that the man with the missing wand arm had blood spattered platinum blonde hair hanging out of his torn hood. A feral grin crossed Hermione's face when she remembered everything that that arrogant prick had done to them; she was still angry about missing school her second year.

"Shit!" Harry exclaimed as he ducked behind the surprisingly resilient table when Hermione's shield flickered and then fell, letting the full force of the battle through. It was Hermione's turn to bare her fangs, " **Expulso, Reducto, Confringo.** " The triplet of explosive curses flew with angry intent: the first threw Malfoy back, knocking the legs out from under several mooks, the second reduced the severed appendage into a fine blood mist that blinded the one reaching for the arm, and the third and most deadly of the three whizzed by the blood coated minion into the wall full of clocks, launching shrapnel of glass, wood, and metal hurtling at the backs of the enemies.

Harry noticed the grim satisfaction on Hermione's face. He overcame his amazement at his best friend's power and how he loved that she was able to stand next to him in these situations. Harry took up protecting the pair while Hermione started chanting those three curses like a montra, targeting everything that could disable and maim without killing. Harry's point defense against their attacks managed to redirect spells away from them. He summoned barriers out of debris and pushed spells onto harmless paths.

In moments, there were only three Death Eaters left pressing forward. They had stopped their attempt to capture them without damaging the prophecy that they thought Harry had on his person and started casting all manner of destructive and deadly magics, including unforgivables. Harry didn't know enough about the spells to counter or redirect them, so he switched entirely over to transfiguration and charms to move objects into the way. Some blasting curses mixed in by the attackers left stone shards imbedded in Harry's arms and back when he protected Hermione from her tactic turned against her.

While grimacing from the pain, Harry looked at the last of their enemies. He had started mixing in banished objects to his defensive pattern to keep them away. Both of their pockets grew warm as their D.A. coins let them know that they had changed. The pair grinned at each other, the others had gotten out with the prophecy and were going to try get help, at least, that is what the signal was supposed to mean.

Hermione glanced at the placement of the three enemies and asked Harry a question between spells, "Do you know bowling?"

Harry's hesitation in answering was both due to his confusion as well as the fact that he was transforming as many of the splinters around the Death Eaters into fire ants that he could manage, "A little, Dudley liked it, but Vernon didn't, too american he said."

"Know about a 7-10 split?"

"Y-yeah?"

"Send something heavy at the right side of them."

"Got it," he answered, gathering a large mass of debris, compressing, and changing it into a single mass of misshapen steel before launching it at the Death Eater to the right. The mook jumped to his right to avoid the almost meter wide projectile before it was suddenly flying through him and at the other two Death Eaters. Hermione had cast a massive **Expulso** at the steel, denting it and sending it viciously into the the duped minions.

When the last three foes crumpled to the ground, Harry grinned at Hermione, "Spare." Another adorable snort came from her as she dug into her pocket for her D.A., it read:

 _All Outside_

 _Right Now_

She hugged him and conveyed the news. They were now both panting from exertion and dripping with blood and sweat. They had managed something that even hardened aurors were lauded for doing: surviving a horde of Voldemort's minions without anyone dying. They checked each other over quickly. The adrenaline was wearing off and Harry's arms and back were throbbing in pain. When Hermione looked him over, she gasped. He could only clench his teeth and smirk to reassure her.

Before either got a chance to tend to their wounds, one of the doors and some of the wall around it was blasted into pieces. The pair dove down behind the workbench, hoping that whoever just burst in might not notice them. The ringing blast caused some of the recently defeated Death Eaters to stir. Hermione used Harry's shoulder to quietly pull herself into a sitting position and then whispered a spell over a small piece of debris. It transformed into a flat metal oval before slowly becoming more reflective with each twirl of her wand until it could function as a mirror.

Hermione cautiously poked the mirror around the edge of the worktop and angled it around to see who came into the room. "Shit," she cursed barely loud enough for Harry to hear. She never cursed, so Harry knew it must be bad. "It's Voldemort and his favorite rabid lackeys, at least six total," she relayed to him. He grimaced and attempted to think of something to get them out of the now dire situation.

Unfortunately, the two Gryffindors didn't have the time to think. "So you fools let two children, let alone a mudblood and half-blood, get the better of you?" a vile voice spoke. Harry shuddered. He knew exactly who that was and he didn't plan on facing him tonight with only his best friend by his side, despite there being no one else he would rather have next to him while he fought. Groans and screams rose up as Voldemort directed punishment and chastised his minions with vicious words and the Cruciatus curse.

Hermione kept an eye on their enemies while she tried to think of some way to get out of there. They could use the Disillusionment spell but she and Harry hadn't gotten good enough for it to be effective while moving, if only they had his cloak of invisibility. She managed not to avert her eyes when Bellatrix, on the dark lord's order, killed the man pinned under the clock, rather than get him out and heal him. The snake bastard doesn't reward failure.

The shuffle and scrape of a drawer opening brought her attention to Harry, who was rooting around in the drawers of the workbench looking for something to help them out. He was mumbling to himself, "I only got away because of a loose portkey, maybe there is an emergency one in here somewhere."

Harry's luck to survive dire situations would be very useful right now Hermione thought to herself. His mumbling triggered something in the back of her mind. She knew there was a way out of here. Out of this damn room of time turners. "That's it!" she gasped, slamming her hand over her mouth at the volume of her voice. Now whispering, "Harry, help me find a working time turner."

"Did you hear that?" a dull voice spoke up. Harry and Hermione glanced at each other in panic and started casting summoning charms on all the time turners they could see, but all were damaged and placed aside. There was a wordless shout of effort from the group of foes and one of the desks to their left exploded in searing grey flames. The pair could feel the heat of the spell even though it was at least five meters away. Harry pulled the last drawer all the way out and looked through it with both hands while it sat on his lap.

"Got one!" he exclaimed, grabbing Hermione with one hand. He quickly cursed when he realized how loud he was and held the device up to show her. It was different than the one she had had their third year, the hourglass had three bands circling around the outside of it, each with small knob to grab and turn with. Hermione cupped his hand holding the time turner and reached for the outermost handle before changing her mind to the smallest ring and turning it about three quarters of a turn.

The workbench burst into flames as she let go of the knob. The heat of the flame never reached them. Harry and Hermione watched as the fire slowly started to creep backwards, shrinking until it was gone. Everything around them was slowly moving backwards. The time reversal crescendoed, becoming faster and faster until everything was a blur of movement. It started to feel like the world was spinning around them while they could only clutch the device and each other.

It lasted longer than any portkey ride Harry had even been on and was twice as disorienting. Hermione felt she was starting to get used to the sensation when the world's rotation around them went off kilter. The wobbling spinning grew worse until she couldn't tell which way was up or even if they were even in the same area anymore. All she could do is pinch her eyes shut and hug her best friend, who hugged her back, both praying for it to end.

Then, it suddenly did, but like loosing an object spun around by a string, the pair went flying off in an unknown direction. They were both screaming at the unexpected movement. She could barely hear him calling out her name over the roar of the magical vortex that they were in. It all abruptly stopped with a wave of pain and darkness as they both passed out from slamming into something.

* * *

It felt like someone stuck her in a washing machine along with a dozen bricks. Hermione wasn't entirely certain which way was up. She tried sitting up but pressed into something. She tried pushing herself off of it but something was keeping her down. She managed to turn her head and look towards the weight on her, it took a moment for her vision to focus and discover a battered Harry with half hugging her and half on top of her. "Harry," she croaked, not realizing how dry her mouth was or how weak she felt, "Harry, please wake up."

He groaned a response before attempting to roll on to his back to allow her to move. The moment his shoulder touched the stone they were on, he yelped and practically threw himself away from the pain on his back and arms. His jump in pain had him bumping back in to Hermione as she turned herself over to get a better look at where they are. Harry ended up face to face with her for a moment before struggling to his feet and helping her to her's.

"Are you all there? I can't quite tell about myself," he asked. He winced when he tried to pat himself down for anything serious, realizing his right arm felt like it was grinding in pain. It was probably broken somewhere in his forearm. His concern suddenly turned towards Hermione when she didn't seem to notice the blood dripping from a wet patch in her hair. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, picking up his wand with his left hand and grabbed her shoulders while squatting down so he could look in her eyes. A quick **Episkey** to seal it and a **Tergeo** to let him check his work. She flinched at the pain in her skull and suddenly realized how close they were.

She quickly took control of the situation when she saw all the blood on Harry. She spun him around as forcibly as she dared with his injuries. His shirt was quickly vanished to allow for inspection. Hermione summoned a piece of the stone shrapnel. She drew an 'm' in the air and underlined it before at tapping the stone saying, " **Quasi Attrahit** ," and then hovering her wand horizontally ten centimeters above his arm. She concentrated as she moved her wand over all his shrapnel wounds. As her wand passed over each one, all the shards of stone flew out and joined the first piece of shrapnel that she had set to the side.

Once finished with his arms and back, she hesitantly waved her wand over his rear before checking the rest of him and proceeding to heal him and vanish the blood. He clenched as the spell forcibly knitted his punctured skin back together leaving dozens of small round bruises on his back, from just below his belt to into his hairline.

"Thanks, I think I can managed to do the same for you. **Quasi Attrahit** ," and then he tapped one of the shards pulled from him. As he passed his wand over his body, Harry did his best to keep focused on the spell. It only drew out a few small shards near the base of her neck and the debris stuck in her hair. A few quick **Episkey** spells and an apology about the pain had Hermione fixed up. He started in on cleaning and repairing her clothes when she noticed the swelling starting in his forearm.

"Goodness! What is wrong with you Harry?" she shouted, "why didn't you tell me it swelled up like this?" He winced as he felt one of her rants winding up.

" **Sana Lenire**. You should have let me take care of that sooner, sit down and let me see what I can do to help you."

Hermione all but shoved him into a chair and took his arm in her hand as she knelt in front of him. A few twists of her wand had an image of Harry's broken bone above his arm. "I know episkey can heal a broken nose, but it is the hammer of healing spells and I think this requires something more like a scalpel," she informed quietly as she bobbed her head around to get a better look at the fracture from different perspectives, "I don't think I can take care of this, so we need to find ourselves a real healer, and to do that, we need to find out where we are."

She canceled her imaging spell and cast a numbing spell to help ease his pain. He sighed at the relief, "You're amazing, Hermione, that is much better." She smiled brightly at her best friend and hugged him. When she did, he groaned a bit, "Too tight, you have to be more gentle with me." The mirth in his eyes relieved the tension as she stood up and went to move away but saw that Harry had not budged.

"Alright mister, that is enough playing around, you're coming right now or I am going to do something drastic," she chided him with her commanding voice and glare, which Harry was sure she picked up from Professor McGonagall. He groaned an unintelligent complaint that had Hermione's hands on her hips as she upped the intensity of her glare.

He grumbled, still playing the petulant part, "Alright, here I come, no need to throttle me."

The complete mood reversal from the deadly position they were in just a moment earlier caused the friends to break out laughing. All of their tension and adrenaline suddenly dropping away caused their laugh to turn almost maniacal. A solid minute of this had them like that before they started to taper off and catch their breath. "Damn, I needed that," panted Harry.

Hermione nodded in agreement before adding, "That release felt incredible but I don't think I could handle that again," she paused to briefly dust herself off, "Well, let's see where are." She quickly trapsed past the furniture to the nearest of the two doors and threw it open while Harry's back was still turned, examining the room. It was a casual lounge with some desks, two leather couches and chairs in front of a fireplace, and a plush, soft brown rug covering everything but the last meter or so away from the walls.

Behind the door was a closet with two petrified beet faced Hogwarts students looking back at her, who had only been minding their own business hiding from a certain unfriendly caretaker for coloring her beloved pet like a Dr. Seuss creature. "I could use you over here," she called out over her shoulder.


	2. First Day of Class

**Author's Note: I know I said that I planned to post every week, but I got a message from a reader who got me excited about some of the characters that show up in this chapter. As a head's up, I try not to a 'previously in the last chapter' section and I often switch character perspectives between chapters so there is going to be an overlap of events.**

 _Displ_ _acement_

 _Chapter 2 - First Day of Class_

The day had started with like any other first day of classes with the only difference this year being that all the students in their year were reminded that they had their OWLS to study for and were given a brief overviews of what they should expect for the test. While most classes only outlined what could be expected and then informed them of the planned syllabus for the year, History of Magic simply had a list of all major events and time frames that might be required to know for their testing written on the blackboard behind the elderly and oblivious Professor Binns by a house elf. The man, despite his fraying focus, was a font of knowledge for all things historical but needed to be kept on task or he often managed to ramble until he connected the topic to his favorite subject: the goblin wars.

The sheer magnitude of everything that Ted needed to know in depth in just nine months was overwhelming, he needed to just get away from it all before the end of the day. So when he found himself in his last class of the day, Defense Against the Dark Arts, paired up with the girl he had a crush on since she helped him out with Arithmancy his third year, he couldn't decide if he was relieved or more stressed. He also couldn't decide if he was going to talk to her casually or just stare straight ahead and hope he didn't embarrass himself.

The pretty dark haired brunette with regal features had spared him the occasional glance; he noticed her doing so less often than she actually did. She sighed at the conundrum in front of her, which luckily coincided with Professor Atticus Phemli mentioning that the pairings in his class were to allow for the practice of offensive and defensive spells and counters as well as being research partners for spells to accomplish specific tasks, such as escaping a guarded and locked room, so pretty-boy Ted misunderstood. She knew she had a crush on him but her parents would kill her if they found her interested in anything muggleborn, especially dating one. She had to decide what to do. Should she wait for him to act or should she act first? How far did she want to risk going? The only way to make this work would to be smart about it.

The class continued on with the expected topics covered, which were fairly irrelevant for someone who had a specialized tutor for the OWLs. Professor Phemli ended the summary of his class with a quick clear of his throat to get everyone's renewed attention before speaking, "Now I know all of you are hoping for a slow start to your year back, but I found you all to be quite lacking in your survival abilities, especially if someone were to press you." The groans of the class at already having assignments faded when his tone turned quite serious, "I have survive twenty-seven separate attempts on my life and nine of them had nothing to do with my line of work, just my charming personality and proximity to dangerous people."

The previously mild mannered professor radiated a ferocity that had the entire class rapt on him. "My knowledge of spells, both dark and benign, have saved me every single time." He swept around the classroom as if on the prowl.

"All your other classes are here to teach you how to do everything correctly, however, I and this class are here to teach you how use everything you know, specifically, to survive."

She scoffed to herself at his dramatics, every one of their teachers emphasized how important their class was, she didn't know why everyone always got so worked up. The attention of the class immediately jumped to her as her disbelief had been amplified so everyone heard it.

"It appears Miss Black disagrees," he remarked as he subtly flicked his wand to cancel the **Sonorus** he had snuck onto the class, "Will you inform the rest of us what you happen to disagree with?"

Andromeda managed to keep her embarrassment from showing that she was called out. It took the briefest moment of mental reeling before she answered with conviction, having been taught duelling arts since a young age as any proud Black was, "My sisters and I have all proved ourselves quite proficient in dueling and Theresa Rhumbal has taught us about many dangerous creatures, and I very much doubt potions class has anything to do with yours."

He smiled and took a moment to think before asking, "So tell me, if you were to be flying on a hippogriff when it begins to act crazed by trying to buck you off and attack you and all there is nearby is a small farming cottage. What do you do?"

"I would get away, probably a broom."

"I never said you had a broom, it is just you and your wand."

"Then I would attempt to disable it with a stupefy."

"While riding on its back, Miss Black? The fall could kill you and the beast," when she didn't respond further, Professor Phemli switch over to his lecture mode, "You have to break the scenario down into pieces. What is at risk, what is the danger, what are my advantages, what are my disadvantages?"

He turned around and began writing this on the blackboard, "I want you to remember those four things to help identify important information, so for the next class I want you to discuss this scenario with your partner and come up with five of the most important questions to ask to help make sure this problem goes well and have them ready to be shared at the start. This is an exercise to help you develop an awareness for these dangerous situations. You only get five questions to emphasize how little time to think there can be."

He looked around the class as students started taking notes for their assignment, "Now, everyone's questions will be read aloud and answered as well as analyzed for the value of the information gained by it. When all the questions are answered, you will then prepare a solution to the scenario along with a detailed explanation on how and why, which will be due the class after next."

He checked his pocket watch for the time before stepping away from the bullet points on the blackboard. He quickly looked over the class with the last of them finishing up their notes. He spoke again as he went to his desk off to the side of the room, "Now I appear to have wrapped up a little short of my allotted time for today, so feel free to go early, but I would suggest talking with your partner and deskmate to set up a time to discuss things further. By my count, you lot have a little less than fifteen minutes to spare, which may be enough to get all five questions done if you're clever."

Several of the partners who were already friends and some who were just housemates got up and left early, leaving most of the remaining pairs of a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin to talk. Some of the Slytherins attempted to control the discussion and others let their badger partner do the brunt of the work. Before the departing half of the class could leave, Professor Phemli spoke up, "While it is not happening this time, part of solving the scenarios I present to you is being able to actually do whatever you said should be done, usually determining what you all need to focus on the following week for demonstrations. So do keep that in mind if any of you think you'll be able to get away with letting your partner do all the work."

While no grumbling was heard because all the Hufflepuffs were too hard working to consider it and the Slytherins were too clever to reveal what they had planned. Andromeda Black had been one of the Slytherins attempting to take control of the partnership when the warning gave her pause. Her thoughts went to making sure that both she and Ted Tonks both did their part. In fact, their professor gave her a good idea for her own problem.

"So, Mister Tonks, I don't suppose we'll have enough time to do all our assignments during spare time in class, so what is your plan?" She asked him, directly addressing Tonks for the first time since the start of class.

He stammered slightly, being put in the spotlight by such a pretty girl, "I, ah, think we need to find a place we can practice future spells and work together, and seeing that we can't cast in the library, I think, ah, a disused classroom would be good. Also, just Tonks is fine."

"Hmm," Andromeda hummed in agreement. Ted's nerves around her stopped him from noticing the mischievous look in her eyes, "So we better take what given time we have to find a safe place." She stood up and gave Tonks a commanding look when it took him a moment to stand up and gather his things.

"With Gryffindors and Ravenclaws will be dominating the towers and upper floors and our own Hufflepuffs and Slytherins are going to be taking over the lower levels and dungeons, so I suspect we'll be left alone if we are somewhere in the middle of the castle," Black informed her partner as she lead them to the staircases. She hated how pointlessly magical this part of the castle was. Why in the world would anyone need walls that look like doors, steps that aren't actually there, and randomly shifting staircases? The dangerous things have caused numerous congestions for students traveling between classes. Andromeda always made sure to pay attention to the shifting stairs and try to predict where they were going so she didn't have to double back and use a different set.

That was when she noticed that there was going to be a moment where the third, fourth, and fifth floors were going to be separated. This was the perfect time to force Ted to act. She slowed behind him and flicked her wand unseen to cancel the masking charm she had laid over the color changing hex she had put on the caretaker's nosy pet crup.

"Who did this to Mister Cotton?" an angry cry rose up from a floor below them. She and Ted snorted at the distress in caretaker Mistiana Wren's voice as she over-babied her very large pet. After some very loud baby talk and soothing of the frankly stoic creature, she asked, "Alright Mister, who did this to you? Where is that nasty little cretin?" The beast barked twice before loudly snorting and sniffing which was followed by the clack of claws and boots moving swiftly over stone and carpet.

Now came the riskiest part of her plan. She cut her chuckle short and suddenly stiffened, mentally congratulating herself when a concerned expression on Tonks's face mirrored her false worry, "Oh, no. I had been practicing a permanent coloring charm today. I got frustrated when it wasn't working and threw the spell blindly down the hall, do think it was delayed?"

Understanding her concern, he glanced at where they were: the third floor corridor on the right hand side. Nothing had been used here for years, some students maintained that it was a cursed part of the castle. He decided that he would risk a curse before he would let the girl he fancied be left at the mercy of the vindictive Wren for harming her darling puppy. He steeled himself and took her hand, leading Andromeda Black in a jog. He had to shake his head to stay focused on how to keep her from trouble instead of how nice it felt to hold her hand.

She knew this part of the castle was hardly visited but because it was constantly passed by, it would be a great location to secretly slip in and out of without attracting attention by having to travel away from the common castle areas. Andromeda had discovered last year that, for some unknown reason, Mister Cotton refused to go into this particular corridor. She knew they wouldn't be caught by the caretaker, but she wasn't about to tell Tonks that, he was too cute all worried and slightly panicked as he lead her down the corridor.

Neither of them could find a door, it was like the entire corridor was just pillars and sconces. Andromeda started to panic a little, last time she was here there were plenty of rooms to duck into, did the castle hide them so they couldn't escape? While she focused on why all the doors were missing, Tonks led them farther down in. He really started to get nervous when they got five or so meters from the end of the hallway and there were still no doors. "Who builds a corridor with no windows or rooms?" he complained as he started glancing over his shoulder for their impending punisher.

This snapped Black's focus back to the problem at hand and away from the fact that her clever plan was starting to go up in smoke, "Maybe we can just hide and hope they pass us by."

"Right," responded Ted as he pulled out his wand before he was stopped by a hiss from his Slytherin partner. She quickly put her hand on his and pulled his wand down to his side, "No magic! Mister Cotton can smell spells and track them. We need to just hide." She pushed him behind the furthest pillar from the entrance to this strange hallway a little more roughly than needed. She pressed him against the pillar and heard his breath hitch, maybe she could salvage her plan after all.

A few seconds after they were behind the pillar, Wren enter the hallway with Mister Cotton. The crup whined when she entered the hallway and only followed the caretaker halfway down before stopping and laying down with another whimper. "I'm sorry, baby, I forgot you didn't like this place. Let's go and get you a treat for having to endure this nasty prank," Wren cooed as she pet him.

When the caretaker finally left, Andromeda let out a sigh and relaxed. Her head leaned against Ted's shoulder for the briefest moment before she stepped away, "I swear, that beast belongs alongside an auror, not a caretaker!" She smirked as she noticed Tonks was still frozen with a blush on his face, the bait had been set.

He cleared his throat quietly, "Ah, yeah, probably…" He trailed off again as his face bloomed red when he realized how close he had just been to Andromeda Black, the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She reminded herself to play it calm and collected and not just jump on him and kiss his adorable face into oblivion. She smiled at him and peered around the pillar to see if their pursuers were actually gone. Ted staggered away from the pillar and leaned against the wall at the end of the corridor, "Man, my heart is still thumping."

Ted slid down the wall to sit on the floor and Andromeda did the same against the pillar so she could look at him and take a moment to collect herself, after all, she had just held her crush's hand and pressed herself against him in the most seductive and subtle way she could manage without overwhelming herself. She grinned at her accomplishment, "Yeah, I heard a rumour…" Andromeda trailed off when she looked at Ted. He was sitting next to a reinforced wooden door that neither had noticed before.

"Rumour?"

She faltered a bit while staring at the door, "That she and her crup used to be part of a special auror team… I'm sorry but do you see that door next to you?"

"Makes sense, wait, what!?" Ted threw himself off the wall when he noticed the door, his head landed in Andromeda's lap, but they were both too distracted to realize. They stood slowly, both not taking their eyes off the door that wasn't there before. They confirmed their idea with a glance and together they tentatively reached out and pulled the heavy door open. It swung smoothly and silently, revealing what looked like a miniature dormitory common room except that it had a battle motif instead any house colouring.

Their eyes opened an amazement but they did not entire the room. Instead, Tonks cast a few detection spells as well as several activation charms into the room while Black checked over the door. "The door has a proximity based Notice-me-not charm, so you have to get really close to see it. Besides that, only the standard reinforcement spells," she informed.

"Right," he replied with a nod, "The room has the usual comfort spells and moving tapestries only."

"Now that I'm looking at, no one outside of a meter will be able to notice anything about the room," she pondered out loud.

"Well, I guess Hogwarts has the perfect little room for us to practice and research in without being bothered," Tonks said as he stuck his head in the room and looked around. "No way!" he exclaimed as he darted in the room, leaving a surprised and quite worried Andromeda outside. She cautiously entered the room, wondering if there was some compulsion charm that took a hold over her prospective boyfriend. Instead of anything damning, she saw Ted throw himself on to one of the two couches in the room and let out a groan.

She walked over to her partner who was now burrowing himself as deeply as he could manage into the sofa while keeping his eyes closed and placed her hands on her hips. "What in the world do you think you were doing, just dashing into an unknown room filled with spells?" she asked with all the sternness she could muster while watching Tonks make a fool of himself over a piece of furniture.

"Mmm, I think we are keeping the room," he mumbled in a distracted tone, not even looking at his now annoyed partner.

"Keep it? What makes you..." she was cut off when Tonks quickly sat forward with a devious smirk and looked at her. "What are you-" she started to ask before shrieking in surprise when Tonks pulled her onto the sofa, landing with her body tightly pressed against him.

"Oh my goodness," she whispered with a sigh as she was suddenly the most comfortable that she had even been. Andromeda let out another sigh and let her body relax, leaning deeper into Ted.

"Right? I thought you could only find Ravenclaw furniture in their common room, well, and the one we Hufflepuffs have in ours," he explained. Unfortunately, Andromeda wasn't really listening, she was now absentmindedly marveling at how amazing his arm felt wrapped around her. Maybe she should just confess now so they could do this on purpose. A light tap on her waist brought her attention fully back to Ted. She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes with a with an expression of complete relaxation.

Ted turned his head to meet her gaze. "You okay?" he asked as she almost looked through with her half lidded gaze. The only response Andromeda could manage was a soft hum of confirmation as she pulled her legs onto the couch and snuggled deeper in to him. It was deliciously comfortable and she couldn't for the life of her remember why she was upset. The spark of consciousness returned to her eyes when she noticed how close the two of their faces were, in fact, how close the two of them were period. Maybe she should just kiss him and forget about any plans.

Ted hadn't noticed the change in Black's demeanor from relaxed to sultry. He further explained the furniture, "So, Ravenclaw is full of knowledge rabid students that don't know restraint. That lead to almost the entire house winding itself into such a frenzy that caused half of them to have breakdowns." He paused to check to see if Black was still following him and saw that she was now paying attention, "The head of house decided to do something to help his students relax. Mind you, this happened some three hundred years ago, so the method had plenty of time to be perfected into this, the most comfortable seating ever."

They both settled into a calm quiet for a few minutes before Black stirred. "If they're for Ravenclaws, how did Hufflepuff end up with one?"

"Ah, well, I may have heard about them in my third year and decided to help my fellow housemates relax by filching one for them." Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, a Hufflepuff stealing? Those loyal, hardworking 'Puffs that got run over by everyone else?

Tonks must have seen the questions playing across her face, as he began to tell the story of how had convinced a fourth year Ravenclaw student to help him and a few classmates study and how it had taken four months of intense extracurricular studying before he 'burned out' and had one of the sofa chairs added to their study group in a corner of the library to help them. He had then snuck it into his dormitory at the end of the year before anyone could take it back and when he went home on the train, everyone had thought someone else had brought it back to the Ravenclaw common room. He started to explain how he had spent his last week at Hogwarts fiddling around with the chair until it sported Hufflepuff colours and had a few ownership spells that claimed it as his.

Halfway through the story of how crafty Andromeda's favorite Hufflepuff could be, she decided right then and there she wasn't going to let him have a chance to get away. So, throughout the rest of the story, she pulled herself closer to him, wrapped her arms around his delicious body, and leaned her head on his shoulder. The boy continued his story, oblivious to their shrinking proximity until the end when he looked into her eyes. He falteringly wrapped it up as he started to speak with a softer voice and inch his head closer. The last sentence he spoke was barely above a whisper and their lips were a few centimeters apart.

Unfortunately, the moment the future couple had the exact same thought, they heard a pop and a creak as something sounded like it was moving towards them. They both whipped their heads about at the sound. It was coming closer to the door. "Shite," Andromeda hissed, "Wren's back." Ted nodded and pulled her towards the only other door in the room, which turned out to be a broom closet full of supplies.


	3. Two Strangers

**Author's Note: I am having a bit of a writer's block on my other story, HP and the Last Hunt, so future updates will likely be only this story. I am still having a pretty good time writing Displacement, in fact, I have managed to work out most of the plot and events and have even gone on to plan two other stories that take place after this one. There is something I just noticed that I didn't know if others were aware of: reviews on stories are all stuck together so there is no easy way for me to tell which chapter/section you are commenting on, so if you refer to something, please give me some context such as chapter number or a summary of what is happening so I can find it myself.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 3 - Two Strangers Walk into an_ _Infirmary_

Once inside the broom closet, Tonks turned towards her and whispered, "Or worse, it's the owners of a room that has been magically hidden." They both shuddered at the power it would take to hide an entire room from everyone at Hogwarts. The door to the hidden room slammed open and the nervous pseudo-couple flinched. Something toppled over and hit the floor followed by groans and moans.

Andromeda, with her mind still in the 'snog Ted until he's yours' mode from earlier, immediately brought her hand to her mouth to cover a gasp. It was definitely the sounds of a two people, male and female. She could only think of one thing a male and a female would go through the trouble of creating a hidden room for: exactly what she had planned to do to Ted at some point. Well, maybe not as far as she was imagining the two who just entered the room were going. "Oh my stars, this is their sex room!" she gasped.

The panic about what could happen to them was overridden by Ted's sudden curiosity at what was happening. He quickly cast the **Silencio** on the door, Andromeda, and then himself. She nodded her appreciation to him and they waited. After a minute of quiet moans, their curiosity peaked and they opened the door a crack to peer outside. It was a wild haired brunet straddling a bushy haired brunette, both were breathing deeply and staring into each other's eyes. Andromeda silently squeaked in surprise and pulled their closet door shut so quickly it would have slammed had it not been for Ted's spell. Ted fell back on to his rear to avoid bashing his head against the door. They were both blushing at what was happening on the other side of the door.

When they collected themselves enough to peek again, they saw the male without his shirt, stroking the back and rear of the girl before ducking back inside the closet. They heard the girl speak,"Goodness, why didn't you tell me it swelled up like this?" before the couple shuffled about the room. The two in the closet couldn't help themselves, they peeked again, this time revealing the boy in a chair and the girl kneeling in front of him, bobbing her head. This caused them both to go wide-eyed and duck back inside.

A soft groaning could be heard. "You're amazing," the boy mumbled followed by another sound of them shifting, "So tight." Both unwitting voyeurs were now crimson with embarrassment.

"Alright mister, that is enough playing around, you're cuming right now or I am going to do something drastic," she said.

"Alright, here I cum… throttle me," he replied with groans. All of the sudden the couple started laughing. The laughter built until Tonks and Black started to move from embarrassed to nervous and then towards scared. The laughter broke and they overheard them talking about how much they needed what they just did, Andromeda was too embarrassed to even mentally say what they just bore witness to. Ted dropped back to a sitting position when the tension released but when he did, he bumped one of the shelves. A glass container of something rocked near the edge and Andromeda latched on to Ted and froze. They watched the bottle wabbled closer to the edge, unable to do anything but hope it didn't topple off. The container settled and they silently exhaled the collective breath they held. They were safe, no crashing glass to draw attention to the closet.

"Did you hear that?" the girl asked.

The two spun turned from the shelf to the door but otherwise remained frozen. Steps came closer to the door before it sprung open. Before the embarrassed pair stood a girl with a disheveled mane of hair, a pouty smile on her face, and a pair of serious brown eyes scrutinizing them. Behind her, they saw the boy looking about the room. He was lean and even with his back to them, they could tell he stood with confidence, but they were distracted by his back being entirely covered in hickeys, with a few trailing below his belt.

She quirked an eyebrow and pointed her wand at them before calling out, "I could use you over here." The boy spun around and coolly walked over, stopping shoulder to shoulder with the girl. His eyebrow quirked the same way as the girl's. Now that he was close enough, they saw that he was covered in scars, quite a few of them appeared to be from vicious wounds.

"Now who do we have here?" he asked in an accusatory way.

"Looks like a couple trying to make good use of the broom closet," the girl said with a smirk. She crossed her arms and tapped her wand into her elbow. The red in Andromeda and Ted's faces that had been fading spiked back up as they attempted to stammer a response. Instead, there was only an awkward silence that helped to further their embarrassment.

"Cat's got your tongue?" she asked. When the two tried to speak again, both forgetting about Ted's silencing spells, she added, "a Kneazle maybe?" Ted pulled out his wand, not noticing they couple quickly twitch into a ready stance with their wands pointed at him, and tried to cancel his spells. He failed, then Andromeda tried unsuccessfully as well.

A snort came from the boy and he added, "Seems more like a herd of them." She rolled her eyes and they nodded to each other. They both quickly waved their wands in the shape of a shield and cast **Finite** on them.

Ted was the first to speak, "Sorry, thanks. We didn't mean to, uh, witness what you two were up to."

"Right, so, we'll just get out of your room and not bother you," Andromeda added as she stood up and attempted to brush herself off in a casual manner before helping Ted to his feet. When the two didn't move away from the closet door, she realized they wouldn't be able to just slip away and sighed, "Well, I guess we have something coming for sneaking into your room and peeking on you."

"Peeking on us?" the girl asked pointedly.

"Our room?" the boy questioned.

Ted blushed again before realizing something else was going on when the boy asked about the room, "This isn't your room, is it?"

The boy shook his head and said, "We don't even know where we are, let alone who this room is belongs to."

Everything suddenly connected for Andromeda, the couple was probably about their age, maybe a little older, and were wearing muggle clothes. "Oh my stars, you aren't even students here, are you? I mean, I don't recognize either of you and I've never seen clothes quite like yours," Andromeda started to ramble before she caught herself. She bowed slightly and introduced herself, "I am Andromeda Black, a fifth year in Slytherin. This here is Theodore Tonks, a fifth year in Hufflepuff who is my partner for the Defense class."

When she came up from her bow, she gave a quick elbow to Tonks's side and he bowed as well, "Feel free to call me Ted Tonks or just Tonks if you prefer."

Harry and Hermione were both reeling when they heard the two names but they managed to keep their panic limited to a casual glance to each other. Harry screwed his lips to the side as he thought for a moment. "So this is Hogwarts," he said as he stepped forward and extended a handshake towards Andromeda Black. He started to speak but stopped when he noticed her glance at has hand with confusion, "Sorry, forgot a handshakes are a muggle only thing." He gave her a quick bow and introduced himself, "I'm Har-" before widening his eyes for a moment and coughing once, "Sorry, I'm… Harek. Harek… Jameson. Feel free to call me Harek." He hoped the two didn't notice his hesitation.

Hermione then stepped forward with a soft smile and bowed, "And I'm Perdita Barnes, and I would prefer you to simply call me Perdita."

The way the two so casually suggested for them to be on a first name basis surprised Black and Tonks enough to distract them from the irregularities of their behavior. "Don't worry, we'll make sure not to be overly familiar with you, Tonks, Miss Black," Harry said with a wave of his hand when he noticed that he and Hermione were making them a little uncomfortable. He also noticed that he was still without a shirt. "Damn, um, Perdita? Do you mind giving me a shirt to put on? You are the one who vanished mine away."

This time, Hermione was the one to flush a bit. She nodded and attempted to conjure him a shirt, only to end up with a wispy shawl looking piece of cloth. She frowned and tried again, resulting in a wispy shirt that dissipated when Harry grabbed it. "Don't worry about it, I'll help you this time," he said, patting her arm with his left. She took a deep breath and nodded that she was ready. As she cast the spell, Harry closed his eyes in concentration and ended up with a striped long sleeved shirt similar to hers, except fit for him.

Andromeda and Ted were impressed that they managed to properly conjure anything at all. Andromeda had never heard of wizards working together like that to cast a spell, so she asked, "How did you cast like that? I mean, conjuration is rather advanced stuff, and wait a moment, you cast Finite silently!"

Hermione smiled as she realized that Andromeda probably sounded like her when faced with something outside her knowledge, "We had some… private training. It was insisted that we had to be able cast Finite silently, otherwise Silencio would render us unable to cast and that is a fairly well known spell, despite its slight difficulty."

Ted and Andromeda looked rather shocked, neither of them had ever thought to use Silencio as an offensive spell, Andromeda especially considering that her family was well known for their extensive dueling training. Harry put on his new and surprisingly comfortable shirt while Tonks and Miss Black were getting over their shock. "Oh, wow. I think I have a new favorite shirt, thank you," he quietly told Hermione.

"Wait a mo. That was permanent conjuration?" Tonks suddenly asked.

"Yeah, I think so. It feels like it's permanent, I don't think we've managed to do that before," he responded without any sense of how impressive permanent conjuration was for two people their age. Hermione smiled and told him he was welcome. It was a tender moment before he realized that they were all standing by a closet and lead them to sit down and continue their conversation.

"If you aren't students at Hogwarts, how did you get here? I thought only students, teachers, and special guests could get in?" Ted asked after the four of them had introduced themselves a bit further. Harry had explained that he had been born in Denmark and had moved when he was young. Hermione had become his neighbor and their parents ended up working together and moving around a lot, so they ended up being tutored together. He had jokingly called what their parents did for work standard Viking stuff.

Hermione snorted and Harry grinned at Ted's belief that there was something keeping people out of Hogwarts. When Andromeda started to take affront to that, Hermione clarified, "We don't exactly know how we got here. I mean, we were just helping out our parents with a little experiment."

"Experiment?"

"Yes, nothing illegal or dangerous - OH MY GOODNESS, YOUR ARM!" Hermione suddenly yelled. She rushed to Harry's side to check to see if he was alright. The other three jump at how loud she suddenly was.

Harry placated her and calmly turned to Tonks and Miss Black, "I'll be fine, especially if our new friends here wouldn't mind leading us to the infirmary." Hermione's almost frantic attention turned towards them and they shifted uncomfortably at her intensity. They were quickly lead out of the room to the infirmary. Hermione and Harry noticed that they has been in the same room that held Fluffy five years earlier. Hermione contemplated if Fluffy had been there earlier or later and had decided that it was both by the time they entered the infirmary's waiting area.

A rather pretty woman rushed over with a stern look after noticing the ruffled appearance of the two couples that just entered her wing, "It's a bit early in the year and you're all a little young to need any type of contraceptive." The four realized how they appeared, still holding each other for support before quickly separating with blushes.

Harry hesitated until he was nudged forward with a cough from Hermione, "No ma'am, I'm here about a broken arm." The nurse appraised the boy who was rather cavalier about a broken bone, deciding he was likely exaggerating.

"Alright young man, right this way. Your friends can come along if you don't mind," she said as she lead him to a curtained off examination area. Hermione was following along before nurse said anything. Andromeda and Ted were a little too embarrassed to inform the nurse that they weren't really friends, so they followed a few steps behind.

Once everyone was seated, she cast several diagnostic spells. "I don't know who you are, but I amazed that you are so calm with a broken wrist and forearm," she commented as she ducked behind the curtain to pull something Harry assumed was a potion.

"That would be because of a numbing charm. We weren't sure if we could fix this on our own," Hermione replied.

The nurse came back with a small cup filled with a smokey grey liquid. "That explains that. I am going to have to cancel it before I fix up your arm, so there will be some pain," the nurse told him. He nodded an acknowledgement and she pulled out her wand and flicked it a few times before storing it again. The grinding pain escalated for a few seconds before turning into a dull ache. "This potion will help with any swelling but not the pain. If it gets worse than an ache, I want you to come back here immediately."

He nodded and downed the medicine with a grimace. As he handed the glass back, he noticed the swelling was already going down. "Now that you are all healthy, I am going to need you to tell me who you are. I don't know who you two are and I am confident I would know about any transfer students," she said while she vanished the glass out of Harry's hand, "I am Madam Pomfrey, the Matron of Hogwarts."

Hermione spoke for them both, "I am Perdita Barnes and this is Harek Jameson. He broke his arm when we, well, suddenly appeared here. We had been helping our parents with an experiment to make portkeys more bearable. We were only supposed to travel one room over." During her explanation, Harry dug a hand into his pocket to grab the time turner for reassurance. The device tingled with energy, so he decided it was best not to fiddle with it.

"If that is the case, we better alert the headmaster about two guests and see if we can get in touch with your parents," Madam Pomfrey said, "Now, I am going to floo Professor Dumbledore and while you wait for him, try to think of anything you can that might help us to figure this out." The Matron then left for her office.

Hermione and Harry immediately started quietly discussing what to tell the professor. They both gave a glance to their 'new' acquaintances. Harry thought for a moment before whispering, "I had been thinking about it for the longest time since our last time turner trip and I am pretty sure Buckbeak never got killed, so we are part of the past already."

"You mean predetermination? We were already in the past so our actions are already part of history," she closed her eyes and recalled all the cause and effects of their previous trip to the past, "I think you might be right, which means we can't change the future, trying to may only cause something bad to happen."

"I'm pretty sure most things I do cause something bad to happen," he tried to joke but he was a bit too marose for it to be funny.

"So, what are you thinking?"

"I dunno, I mean we can try to get… back… there is no going back, is there?" he asked becoming even more crestfallen.

"I thought that at first as well. It makes sense because it follows the rules I was taught before being allowed to use one of those our third year, but the furthest anyone could go back was fourteen hours and the device that did it shattered on its first use, so we are in uncharted territory," Hermione took a moment to sort through all of her knowledge of time turners.

"The first rule of time travel is to make sure the area you are in is clear for when you go back, there are several accounts of the time traveler overlapping into something and being mistaken for splinching.

The second rule is that you must never meet yourself in the past, luckily, time turners have a built in function that protects the wearer from accidently creating a paradox, what it is, I do not know.

This leads to the third rule, never take off a time turner while in the past, all I could find out with my own research was that the third rule is to ensure that the safety works.

There is also the time travel law of magic that doesn't allow someone to change the past."

He snorted at that, "You not finding everything out by the time you're done researching it is hard to imagine."

She pouted at the comment and he started to chuckle. Hermione raised her voice a touch in annoyance, "How was I supposed to find everything out about them? The Department of Mysteries has put sanctions on researching them, so I could only look at public knowledge!" Her small outburst attracted the attention of Tonks and Miss Black who had gotten around to discussing their Defense homework.

Andromeda's curiosity got the better of her and her focus shifted away from Ted, who followed her changing attention. Perdita and Harek hadn't noticed that their conversation was no longer private. "Here we go again, the DoM and the ministry making things difficult for us. Do you think there is any way for us to request the information, you know, without becoming an Unspeakable?" Harek asked.

Perdita paused for a moment before a grin came across her face. He apparently knew exactly what she was thinking about when he stood up and spoke in a firm voice, "No. We are not doing that again. Just look what happened!" She huffed and stood up right next to him. Perdita had a stern look that Andromeda could only imagine on Professor McGonagall and was quite impressed by it. "Seriously? I mean, I'm supposed to be the reckless one and you're supposed to be the one that thinks things through, you know, a perfect team," he said, obviously losing ground against her silence.

She quirked an eyebrow at Harek as his rant escalated, Ted had to cover his mouth to muffle his laughter. Ted leaned in close and whispered, "Those two are too insync with each other, it's like they don't even need words to argue." She had to bite her lip and press her mouth into Ted's shoulder to keep from cracking up.

"Come on! Remember, I am the one that gets us into trouble and you get us out!" Harek ranted while pointing at her then himself, "Smartest witch of the age, glory seeking orphan!" in an attempt to solidify his point.

That last comment drained away any humor the two found watching their new acquaintances argue onesidely, causing them to freeze. Perdita winced at the self-deprecation and reached her hand out to comfort him, "And as the smartest witch of the age, let me tell you, mister, that you are quite the opposite."

He nodded his head and let it lean against her in defeat. He mumbled, "I'm sorry," as he did.

A gentle smile crossed her face as she put her hands on either shoulder and pulled him away to look in his eyes, "Don't you dare started brooding, I remember how bad you got after the basilisk. And then after the dementors. And with the dragon. And the maze death-trap. So don't you dare start now!" She all but shook him about to drive her point home. The sincerity in her voice had Andromeda unable to believe she could be lying about those things. Just who were these people?

Harek shook his and smiled weakly at her, "Thanks, I don't know what know what I would do without you."

"I would never leave you on your own," she responded resolutely, "Now don't worry about it, everything is easier the second time we do it, plus we have time to make a plan, so you know it will be easy." This caused them both to break out laughing and fall back on the bed. They had to hold on to each other to stop from laughing themselves to the floor.

It was at this moment that Madam Pomfrey decided to walk back in with Professor Dumbledore. The two didn't notice until the Matron cleared her throat in annoyance, "I have to ask you to not disturb the other patients or get worked up, especially after I just fixed you up."

The laughing couple stilled at her warning and sat up straight when they noticed the headmaster. "Sorry ma'am," Harek said as he rubbed his neck with his right hand. She nodded in acceptance and noticed that he was casually using his recently broken arm with ease, which satisfied her.

"I have students I need to check on and I am sure some more will be coming my way soon, Gryffindor decided that the first night after classes wasn't too soon to start Quidditch practice," Madam Pomfrey said as she left the four with the headmaster.

"Thank you, Poppy. I am sure we will be able to manage without your extensive medical oversight," Professor Dumbledore responded with a twinkle in his eye, "Now I am understanding that you two managed to pop up, and through the anti-portkey wards no less."

The two looked a little embarrassed by the amount of interest the headmaster was paying them. Perdita was the one who spoke up first, explaining how they had been transported here by accident by an experiment with their parents. He quietly listened to their story, including their rough landing and meeting Tonks and Miss Black, leaving out bit about where they had landed in the castle and how Tonks and Miss Black found them. Professor Dumbledore waited when they finished talking for a moment before asking his first question in his grandfatherly manner, "I don't mean to pry, but you mentioned working with your parents and I had overheard something about Harek being an orphan."

Perdita froze in surprise, she must not have realized how loud they had gotten during their argument. Harek managed to answer him calmly, "My parents are dead, sir, and because our families were close, I ended up staying with them as they moved about." He wrapped his arms around Perdita gave her a caring squeeze, "Honestly, I don't remember too much about them…" he trailed off with a solemn expression on his face before continuing, "they worked quite a bit and were fairly reclusive." She smiled sadly and squeezed him back.

"I am sorry for your loss," the headmaster responded gently before speaking again after a respectful silence, "I find myself wondering how I never saw you on the list of magicals Hogwarts would send an invitation to."

This time Perdita responded, "We weren't exactly available at the time."

"Are you sure? The ledgers are automatically made aware of any magical child as young as five in the United Kingdom as well as some of our allied nations such as Sweden and France," Professor Dumbledore's tone was still grandfatherly, but they all could hear doubt creeping in.

"We haven't been in country until my parents started their latest experiment and they are approved to tutor us on most everything," she answered.

"Of course, that explains the bit I overheard about the Department of Mysteries. They are known to bring in experts to consult on occasion, usually people from out of country that they hadn't managed to recruit," he clapped his hands together and stood, "I think I can get you sorted out in a blink, if you follow me to my office, we can floo the department."

The two waited until his back was turned before exchanging a nervous glance that was almost caught when Professor Dumbledore turned back around and added, "Mister Tonks and Miss Black, I don't think it will be necessary for you two to come along. Besides, I'm sure you haven't gotten much done with your homework from Professor Phemli and dinner is only forty minutes away." The two nodded and didn't follow the three.

Tonks turned to Andromeda and said, "Miss Black, after our evening, I don't think I have the energy to think about hippogriffs."

"Neither do I. I think might need those Ravenclaw couches to relax from this whole ordeal."

"Do you mind if I join you? I offered free use of mine to all of Hufflepuff and I don't think I could kick someone out."

She smiled and nodded, "I think I'll like that."


	4. Officially History

**Author's Note: I don't have too much to add. Money came up for the first time in the story and I decided the 1 Galleon is worth 10 Pounds roughly, the exchange rate through Gringotts is 11 Pounds to 1 Galleon and 1 Galleon to 9 Pounds. If any you ever wonder where I pull the spells word I make up from, I simply use google translate for a word similar to the effect and try out different languages until I find a word I prefer.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 4 - Officially Part of History Now_

Hermione and Harry were silent as they followed behind a humming Albus Dumbledore. They held hands in an attempt to overcome their nervousness. Professor Dumbledore always managed to know about everything they got up to while they were at school, so they had to be extra careful to not reveal anything. Every time they passed by something different than Harry and Hermione's Hogwarts, they squeezed hands for comfort. By the time they arrived at the gargoyle, they were pressing against each other for reassurance.

The password was a magical candy that neither recognized, it must have disappeared before either of them entered the wizarding world. As they climbed the stairs to his office, Albus Dumbledore's mood shifted from jovial to reserved. It didn't help their nerves but Hermione quietly reminded Harry that they had told him about a laboratory accident, which to him would mean there's a chance that her 'parents' could be injured. She could only hope that the DoM was as tight lipped as she heard they were.

Dumbledore had two seats near the fireplace ready for them. He gestured with one hand for them to sit while he directed some floo powder about with a wave of his other. The green fire sprung to life with when he stated, "Department of Mysteries. Harry stared at it with dread as nothing happened for a few seconds.

A shrouded face appeared in the flames, it had no distinguishing features and spoke in such a flat manner that he couldn't tell if it was a recording or not, "You have floo called the Department of Mysteries from a fireplace that doesn't have authorized access. You may leave a message. If this is an attempt to contact an Unspeakable, remember that all information released must be authorized by the head of the department and you must be vetted by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

The entire time what only could be an Unspeakable spoke, Dumbledore nodded his head. Once all the preface had been said, he spoke up, "I understand, thank you very much. I am hoping to gather a little information, you see, I have a Perdita Barnes and a Harek Jameson here with me at Hogwarts who have told me that they were part of an accident during an experiment. Seeing that these two are minors, I am hoping of getting in touch with their guardians, who were reportedly working there during the accident."

It turns out that it was not a recording of an Unspeakable when the obscured person responded, "I am not authorized to release any information but considering that this may involve people from outside the department, I will pass you along to Unspeakable Hopper. He is in charge of public relations and authorization. One moment." The Unspeakable disappeared from the green fire and it died down until it was only as big as a candle's flame. It flared back up with the Unspeakable's head and shoulders visible.

As soon as the Unspeakable started to talk, they all realized that it was someone else, the voice was slightly different, a little more gruff, "Albus, I heard you were asking about civilian involvement in an experiment."

"That is correct, Hopper. I have Perdita-" he was cut off by the Unspeakable holding up his hand.

"Because of our policies, after a civilian consultant is approved for entry, their information is wiped from the records and they receive consultant identities for everyone's protection, please excuse us and leave the room while I talk with the two whom you are concerned about."

It seemed like the headmaster was about to argue but conceded to the Unspeakable, "Of course, just give me a minute to excuse myself."

They waited for him to clear the room before approaching the fireplace. Hopper looked the two of them over. "Security protocols, please step through and join me." They held hands and did so without a fuss. Despite holding hands when they went through, Harry managed to get pulled away from Hermione before they arrived. When she stepped out into a neatly organized office alone, Hopper tilted his head slightly to the left, something Hermione could only assume to be confusion.

"Where is the other-" he was cut off when the floo flared up again, this time out stepped an Unspeakable.

"Sir, I just apprehended a boy, age fifteen or sixteen, breaking in to my lab using the fireplace I was working on, here he-" the Unspeakable stopped in his tracks and looked behind him, "I had him just behind me tied up, he couldn't have gotten away. I had my hand on him."

Hopper let out a sigh and shook his head, the day kept getting more and more complicated. The girl spoke up after a small laugh, "Sorry about that, the only type of magical transportation that doesn't go wrong for him is a broom."

Hopper rolled his eyes despite knowing no one could see them, "Do you have anything sensitive out in your lab, Rasperio?" The second Unspeakable shook his head no and Hopper continued, "then it will probably be easier if we just hop over there and walk back instead of trying to bring the young man here through the floo again." They followed Rasperio through the floo into a room with multiple fireplaces. The first thing they noticed was the boy face down, halfway underneath one of the workbenches, struggling to get free of his bindings.

"You really are terrible at magical travel," she commented as Hopper came out of the fireplace behind her.

"Oh thank God, I had no idea what was going on. I thought someone managed to kidnap me," the boy called out, "Also, someone needs to dust in here." He punctuated his comment with a sneeze as he was magically dragged out and set on his feet. Once he was released, he stretched and rubbed his shoulder, probably sore from being spat out of the floo.

"Hopper, I don't know how he ended up in here. I mean, I connected this fireplace to the floo network maybe five seconds before he came shooting out of it," Rasperio said as he pulled out his wand and started scanning the boy. Hopper tapped his foot in annoyance as the Unspeakable became a little over focused and forgot that he wasn't alone. The boy and girl jumped when he suddenly stood away and exclaimed, "Hah! Figured it out! You suffer from situs inversus totalis, your insides are mirror the usual."

The boy and girl stared at Rasperio in shock. He waved their concern off and added, "Really, nothing to worry about. It is more of a surprise that you didn't know. Have you ever been to a hospital?" He shook his head no and the Unspeakable hummed his disapproval, "You've never had a physical, have you?" Again, he shook his head no. "You should get on that. Your condition means your flow of magic is a bit different than everyone else's, think clockwise and anticlockwise. My base scans let me know that you don't have the normal higher risk for heart conditions that can accompany situs inversus. It explains why you popped out here when I was testing this fireplace."

Hopper cleared his throat, "I think we are starting to get off topic. We were about to check to see if these two are authorized consultants." Rasperio bowed slightly and returned to his notes mumbling about having the user initiate the magic vectors of floo to make it easier for everyone to use. "Alright, follow me and we'll be back in my office in no time."

It took only a few minutes to get back to Hopper's office, the boy sighed and relaxed when they all stepped through his door. Hopper turned to address that when he already started to explain, "Sorry, I just really didn't want to deal with that carousel of doors after all that." The girl nodded, turning a bit green at the thought of the spinning doors. The pair had definitely been inside the DoM before, deeper than public access allows.

"Alright, give me a moment to pull up the files on our consultants," Hopper said as he spun around and started digging through a filing cabinet, "What was your supervising Unspeakable's name?"

The girl spoke up, "Sorry, we don't know. We were just helping my parents with their portkey experiment, we were helping test it."

"Yeah," the boy added, "We knew I was bad at them, so they were using me to see if they could make them less, well, unforgiving."

He snorted at the boy's comment, it did make sense, using many variables to create the best solution. He mumbled as he sorted through some of the files, not noticing how nervous his two guests were getting, "Portkeys mean spell creation and experimentation and if they were in early parts of creation and testing, that would mean either Galgoa or Ion."

Harry and Hermione looked at each other and nodded, both subtly slipped their wands out and held them low, out of sight. Hermione hopped in surprise when the Unspeakable whipped out two folders and spun to face them. "Let's see. Hmm. Ion didn't have any consultants and Galgoa, oh, had a lab accident sixteen days ago," Hopper read out.

"Two weeks ago?" Hermione managed to weakly ask.

"Yes, he along with three consultants disappeared in a surge of magic, destroyed quite a bit of the room."

Harry stuttered out a question to keep up their act, the surprise in his voice was real at how the situation was leaning in their favor, "Does that mean one of her parents is okay?"

The Unspeakable looked up from the paper and stared at Hermione, she shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, "No, I'm sorry but Galgoa, his three consultants, and their two assistants are believed to be destroyed along with all the research," he paused to judge their reactions. Hermione put on a frozen blank face to hide her panic of being found out and Harry's eyes just widened briefly.

"What were your clearance identities?"

There was a long pause as Hermione was unable to think of anything. Harry managed to speak up, flicking his wand with a subtle Confundus charm hidden by a cough. He made a note to thank Hermione later for forcing him to study outside of class and assignments. Hopper looked back down at the file and up to them, "Were your identities Abeona and Adiona?" Harry nodded and Hopper continued, "then I am sorry for your loss." Hermione glanced at Harry with a concealed look of confusion but noticed that he put his wand away, so she turned back to the Unspeakable, who had begun writing something. "Ion did mention something about a disturbance in the wards around her lab today, that must have been you two bouncing around."

He finished writing out a letter and passed it to them, "This is a writ of disappearance for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, as part of the contract to become a DoM consultant, you and your parents ceased to exist while working here as part of our protection of secrets."

"Due to having no one listed in the contracts to contact in case of emergency except all those who disappeared, all of your documents have been destroyed after the standard fortnight of waiting to allow someone to submit a matching missing person report," he continued as he passed a second paper to them, "These will reinstate your existence according to Great Britain under the magical misplacement law and allow you to receive payment for services rendered by yourselves and your parents."

"Thank you," Hermione said as she took the two forms and started to read them over.

"Now that you can two exist once again, can I interest you in becoming consultants once more? Ion's research has recently encompassed Galgoa's and the loss of all that research set quite a few people back, so you two would be great assets."

Harry frowned at the idea of working with the DoM, the farther they were away from their cover story the better. Hermione, on the other hand, nodded in agreement, she knew that if they worked here they would have a chance to find out more about time turners. Before either could speak their mind, the inbox for paperwork buzzed and a sheet flashed into existence. Hopper grabbed it, read it over, and laughed, "Looks like Rasperio just put in a request for someone with situs inversus to help test his upgrades to the floo network, he even added a note to the bottom. 'If it turns out those two were lying, I would be happy to have them work for me in return for a reduced prison sentence.' What a joker!"

Harry and Hermione nervously chuckled. Hopper spoke again, "If you two agree to consult for both Ion and Rasperio, I think I could manage to have you hired as interns instead of consultants. That will let you come and go like it is a normal job, rather than being stuck in our housing facilities." Hermione looked at Harry with a determined expression, she nodded her head towards the Unspeakable and lifted her eyebrows. Harry rolled his head in exacerbation and then they both nodded an affirmation to Hopper. "Wonderful! No need to worry about those papers then. I can have it taken care of along with your notice of employment while we get you two outfitted with some intern robes after you fill out these two forms."

He handed each of them a form of employment to fill out along with two fountain pens he pulled from his desk. They took pause at the sight of them before shrugging and filling out the form. Hopper chuckled and explained, "These are some special devices that one of ours worked out years ago, they and their writing are charmed against any form of scrying or tampering and prevent anyone not authorized from reading what they write. Those are yours for as long as you work here."

They started filling out the form with their fake identities. Harry did the math and put the day he turns sixteen on the tenth of October by his calculations and Hermione's seventeen birthday on the fourth of December. He looked over and saw that she had already done the math and moved on. They were being paid two Galleons per hour and medical insurance was included. There was even a section about setting up a retirement fund. He decided that he could skip that part.

Once they finished filling out everything, Hermione much faster than Harry, Hopper stood up and lead them to a closet door. He reached inside and pulled out two steel blue robes, they were a few shades lighter than the one Hopper was wearing. "These are your intern robes, there is a badge to go along with them, but you won't receive that until your first day of work, and knowing Dumbledore, he is going to do everything in his power to keep an eye on you two, so I expect you'll end up as students at Hogwarts." They took the robes and folded them until they were small enough to fit in their pocket with the pens they were given.

He smiled and led the two to the door, "That man can't help himself when it comes to something that catches his interest. Did you know he tried to convince me to get an Unspeakable to quantify the happiness candy can give you? Anyway, your first day will be this Saturday starting at eight in the morning, after that, your hours are up to your supervising Unspeakable and you to work around your class schedules. The elevator is straight to the left."

Harry started to head out when Hopper smacked his head, "Sorry, so much has happened that I forgot you floo'ed in from Dumbledore's office, back inside we go." He quickly went to his fireplace where a small green flame flickered and sprinkled in some floo powder. The flame grew to full size and he directed them in. Harry managed to come out of the right fireplace but he fell over and pulled Hermione down on top of him. Hopper's head followed them through. He glanced around the room and poked his wand out to cast a few spells before talking, "Before I forget, Perdita, your working name is again Adiona, Harek, your's is Abeona. Your job requires you two to get portkey and apparition licenses, we will take care of that come Saturday, so just use the floo in the Three Broomsticks Inn to come to the arrival area of the Ministry.

The intern robe, when worn, prevents any form of identification except by full Unspeakables, so put it on before leaving the Hogwarts wards to prevent anyone from realizing that you have left the grounds. Use of the robes in any unauthorized capacity will result in at least five years in Azkaban.

I noticed you two don't have any vault listed for direct deposit, so please set that up as soon as you can so wages can be deposited daily instead of received every fortnight and also we can take care of what we already owe you two. I believe that is all, take care and I would advise against eating any candy Dumbledore offers you, I think he started experimenting to create the happiest candy possible which just sounds worrisome."

With that, the fire blinked out leaving only a wisp of smoke. A few seconds later there was a soft pop as the temporary privacy wards Hopper had made fell. The moment they did, Professor Dumbledore poked his head back in, "Did you wrap up with all the Department of Mysteries secrets?"

"Yes, it has all been worked out," they informed him as they moved the chairs to in front of his desk and sat down. He joined them and smiled, "Glad that that was all taken care of, even if it did take almost an hour. I was able to take a nice stroll."

"Now on to what to do with you two," Professor Dumbledore said as he pulled out an old tome and flipped to the middle before searching around a bit, "Here we are: Perdita Barnes and Herak Jameson. It says here that you have have not completed your OWLs and seeing that you are staying in Britain without any ICW approved equivalence, you will need to attend Hogwarts as a fifth year student. That is unless you two plan on traveling to another country to study or will be hiring Ministry approved tutors for the testing."

Harry smirked at the fact that Hopper was right about Dumbledore. "I think we both are fine with staying here to study," Harry responded, "How do we handle this considering we can't exactly contact a previous school for transcripts and other transfer information?"

"Nothing to worry about. I will take care of everything for you. I imagine you two must be hungry by now, so I'll have Macy take you to the great hall for some food," as he said the name, a lithe house-elf popped into existence next to the headmaster's desk and bowed at the directive. Harry didn't like the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes, he seemed entirely too excited with them becoming his students.

Once they were alone with the house-elf, heading towards the great hall, Hermione turned to Harry, "I'm not being paranoid by thinking the headmaster is planning something, am I?"

Harry snorted, "No, his eyes just about screamed mischief. He is having much too much fun regarding us. He probably is going to do something during dinner."

Hermione turned towards the house-elf, "Your name is Macy, right?" The little elf wearing what looked like a dress made of handkerchiefs sewn together nodded before leading them down a hallway that they both realized lead them to one of the side entrances to the great hall.

"Yup, he's definitely up to something. Actually, I am surprised he didn't offer us a candy," he noted.

She shushed him before turning back to Macy, "How are the conditions here at Hogwarts?"

"Well, a fews of us thinks it is too much rains lately, but Jules, my besty friend, says that the days are gonna be's sunny and better soon," she responded, entirely misunderstanding what Hermione meant.

"That is great news, thank you, but what I meant was how do you like working here?"

"Jules and Macy have the besty time working here. It is much bestier when all the students comes back. Gardening overs the summers is less best."

Hermione hadn't heard about house-elves gardening at Hogwarts but before she could ask, Harry cut her off, "She is probably talking about farming for the school," to which Macy nodded happily, "That is great to hear how much you enjoy it here, if either you or Jules want any extra work, I'm sure we could use a hand getting settled in seeing that we don't have anything besides what we currently have on us." Hermione was about to complain about giving the house-elves more work when she saw how excited Macy was getting at the idea of helping them.

"This is the bestest! Macy and Jules get to be personal house-elves. Macy will tell Jules this best news after you are at the greatest hall," the little elf crowed, picking up the pace in her excitement. When they got the side entrance, they could hear the hall filled with talking students. Macy turned and hugged Hermione's leg, "Thank you so's much. What does Macy and Jule call yous two?"

Hermione smiled kindly and knelt down to touch the elf's shoulder, "I am Perdita Barnes and this is Harek Jameson. Please call use Perdita and Harek or whatever you feel comfortable with." The elf was now vibrating with excitement. She nodded her head with such force that her ears made a slapping sound before she popped away to tell Jules. "Well, I guess all that knitting I did wasn't worth much," Hermione said as she stood back up.

"That's not true," Harry responded, "You now know the truth and can make a mean scarf, I'd say that's two wins, maybe more considering that you can knit hats as well." She rolled her eyes at the joke but it did make her feel better.

"Do you suppose we can just walk in or do we wait to be let in?" she asked, stepping closer to the doors. Before Harry could answer, they swung open and they heard Dumbledore addressing the hall, "And now it is my pleasure to introduce two transfer students who arrived late due to a small mishap while travelling, Perdita Barnes and Harek Jameson. Come on in you two."

They stepped into the hall, Harry winced slightly at all the attention focused on them. There in front of everyone was the same crooked stool and old hat that had been waiting for them the first time they had entered this hall. Harry groaned quietly in her ear, "I thought it was embarrassing the first time, but this? Please just shoot me now so I can be done with this." She couldn't help herself, she started to laugh at his whining. Soon they were both laughing while the rest of the hall was silent.

Hermione managed to reclaim her wits first, "Sorry about that, we had an interesting day."

"It is quite alright, Miss Barnes," Albus Dumbledore said with a cheery tone, "Now if you wouldn't mind putting on the hat and getting sorted, we'll be able have you seated in no time."


	5. Welcome to Hogwarts

**Author's Note: I want to say thank you for reading this. That is all.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 5 - Welcome to Hogwarts_

Andromeda and Ted had all but ran back to the hidden room on the third floor. They dodged around a ghost who shouted after them and ignored its complaint. By the time they reached their secret room, they were breathing heavily. Without a word between them, they strode completely synchronized across the room and plopped themselves down on the nearest Ravenclaw couch with simultaneous sighs of relief.

"Stars above, you need to help me get one of these," Andromeda moaned as she sunk deeper into the cushions.

"Mmm, I'll help you with the ownership spells, I think you have a handle on the color changing ones," he responded before they both broke out laughing.

"Actually, I think I might have to take one of those sofa chairs and give it to my sister for her birthday, she is so uptight."

"I don't know anything about your sister, but I'll be happy to help."

"Two. I have two sisters actually. Bellatrix's birthday is the fifteenth, she always complains about missing the cut off for school and how she should be a grade higher. My little sister, Narcissa, is going to be turning eleven in November, so we'll all be together next year."

"Is this it nice having siblings? I'm an only child."

"They are both mostly brats, but I love them to death. I have to force both of them to do anything during the summer besides their dueling lessons."

"Is that a Black thing or a pureblood thing, teaching dueling at such a young age? Actually, how is your little sister getting away with learning magic outside of school?"

"Pff, Blacks have always done things their own way. Our house has incredibly strong privacy wards around it, I'm pretty sure Merlin himself would have trouble locating it, let alone knowing if there is magic being used."

There was a pause which caused Andromeda to open her eyes and look at Tonks. He was pouting, "That is so not fair."

She started laughing and his pout slowly turned into a grin, "Well, if you have a kid, I'll help you set up some wards so they can practice whenever they want."

"Mmm, thanks," he mumbled. After a few minutes of drowsy silence he spoke up, "Can I call you Andromeda instead of Miss Black?"

His question surprised her, this was a pretty big step in their relationship, in the wizarding world at least, she wasn't sure how it was for muggles. It took her a bit before she nodded, "Only if get to call you Ted."

"Alright, look at us, a badger and a snake becoming friends, the only way we could have more opposite is if I was a lion or mongoose." She laughed but had to ask him about the mongoose bit, "They are known for hunting and eating snakes, especially venomous ones."

She let out a soft 'oh' at his explanation before leaning against him, "Now, less chatting and more napping, the only time I can relax in my dormitory is when I go to bed. Can you set an alarm?" He nodded and pulled out his pocket watch, mumbled **Clamant Thaum** , and tapped the watch with a swirl of his wand before tucking them both away and shifting his arm to the back of the couch.

They dozed against each other happily until the alarm for dinner went off started ringing out. It crescendoed until they were both awake. A yawned **Finite Incantatem** came from Andromeda as she rolled off the couch and stretched. "I know you said it earlier, but we are definitely keeping this room," she said after she cupped her hand to her mouth to stifle another yawn. She pulled Ted to his feet and smiled at his ruffled hair. She knew it was only the second day they had been at school, but she had a good feeling about this year and mister handsome here was a big part of it.

"Mhmm," he hummed with a nod of agreement, "We can come back after dinner if you want, but I think some of our housemates will be suspicious if we just disappear. I think we should just use the library if you want to work on our Defense assignment tonight."

They left the room and made their way to the great hall, still talking, "I think I will just go back to the dorm after dinner. When are you free tomorrow?"

"I believe I am free until ten in the morning and then again from two to four. When are you free?"

"The same I believe. We have Defense, Herbology, Transfiguration, and Arithmancy together. I still don't know why you didn't want to take Creatures, it is amazing to learn about all those magical beasts."

"Me not taking CMC has nothing to do with my preferences for animals and everything Theresa Rhumbal favoring girls in her class. She is so notorious that everyone knows the first few creatures she brings in favor girls so much that some are openly hostile to the boys in the class."

"But who doesn't want to meet a unicorn or a wood nymph?"

"A boy who has the good sense to avoid being kicked, skewered, turned to mulch, or otherwise harmed by what he is studying in class."

She snorted and laughed at Ted, "What about our Defense class? It sounds like the professor is going to have us attacking each other with spells." He grumbled a response that she couldn't quite hear, "What was that?"

"Fine, I don't like their smell, okay?"

This caused Andromeda to stop in her tracks and sputter as she tried to contain her laughter. She started to shake as she barely failed. She managed to get herself under control with a deep breath. "You are such a nancy-boy!"

"It's not that!" he exclaimed. His excessive defiance made it look like a pathetic bid of denial, causing Andromeda to start laughing again. "I had a bad experience," he said curtly.

"A bad experience? So mysterious," she mocked.

"Fine. I was six at the time and I got stuck in a pen with some screaming goats. I was so terrified of them that I set the hay on fire with accidental magic, unfortunately, that freaked the goats out. Happy? I still get really nervous around that livestock smell."

"I'm sorry, didn't know it was that bad," Andromeda responded. After a brief pause she asked, "How big of a fire?"

"Two whole hay bales and then one of the goats when it almost ran me over as it tried to escape. My parents couldn't reach me in time."

"Well, on the bright side, at least you found out you have an affinity for fire magic. That sounds like too much fire to just be a random occurrence."

"Yeah, well, fire comes easy, but I end up making too much or losing control of it."

"Sounds like you get nervous all over again and lose focus. Occlumency would do you a world of good."

"Occlumency?"

"The practice of magically organizing, controlling, and protecting your thoughts and emotions. Muggles can do it too, but it takes them longer to learn."

"Like meditation?"

"That is part of it, I guess I'll have to teach you the basics in exchange for the help with the chair." He nodded and then noticed that they were at the great hall.

"I guess we part ways until tomorrow," he said with a small wave before heading towards his house table. Andromeda made her way towards her's. She slowed down so she could spot her friends and she did, joining them just as the teachers came in.

Before her friends began to grill her about where she ran off to after Defense class, Professor Dumbledore raised his hand and said, "Good evening students." He waited for all of the students to focus on him before continuing, "I hope everyone had a wonderful first day of classes. I must tell you that I had the most interesting day myself, but I'm sure everyone is more interested in dinner than the tales of this old man."

The headmaster smiled openly at his students as he gestured with his hand to summon forth the Sorting Hat and stool. "Tonight we receive two transfer students. Hogwarts hasn't had a student transfer here in almost thirty years, so this is quite exciting. But enough of the suspense, it is my pleasure to introduce the two new students who arrived late due to a small mishap while travelling, Perdita Barnes and Harek Jameson. Come on in you two."

Andromeda smirked at the headmaster's political correction of the events that brought the couple here. She had to admit that the old man knew exactly how tell just enough truth to have his audience fill in the rest just the way he wanted them to. She couldn't imagine anything more cunning than tricking someone without lying.

When the two stepped into the hall, both still not wearing school robes, there was a murmur amongst the students. The were mostly guessing about where they came from, why they transferred, and how attractive they were compared to the current students. The two walked closely together before Perdita broke out laughing, shortly followed by Harek. Perdita calmed down first, "Sorry about that, we had an interesting day."

"It is quite alright, Miss Barnes," Professor Dumbledore answered with a cheery tone, "Now if you wouldn't mind putting on the hat and getting sorted, we'll be able have you seated in no time."

Before Perdita walked forward to put on the annoying hat, Harek caught her arm and whispered something to her. She nodded and he turned towards the headmaster, "Would it be alright if we introduce ourselves? It will save us from having to do it for every class and when we first meet someone."

The headmaster nodded, "That is quite efficient of you, please go right ahead."

"Thank you, sir," Harek bowed slightly before turning to address everyone else, "As you probably figured out, I'm Harek Jameson and she's Perdita Barnes. We had a bit of trouble involving the portkey that brought us here. Not only did we manage to somehow show up a day late, we have lost everything that wasn't on our backs.

But please don't worry about that, we can handle our little problem without breaking a sweat. I was born in Denmark and moved soon after. My parents ended up working with Perdita's so we started moving around the world together. My parents died and her's took me in. Until this year, we have been taught magic by our parents and the occasional tutor. It is nice to meet you all, feel free to call me Harek."

Perdita smiled at his display and stepped up next to him, "Hello everyone. Like Harek said, we have been taught magic outside of school, so some of our methods are a bit different. I don't have much to add except that according to our age, we would be in our sixth year here, but because we never took the OWLs, we are transferring in as fifth year students. I hope we can get along and please call me Perdita if you are comfortable with that."

After the two said their piece, Perdita when to pick up the Sorting Hat, who started grumbling, "I come out for a second night in a row and I don't even get to sing? It's not like I have much else to do as a hat."

Perdita apologized to the Sorting Hat before placing it on her head and sitting down on the stool. The hat mostly fit her head, leaving her to look over the students watching. Andromeda noticed that her eyes pause as they passed over the Hufflepuff table, she probably noticed Ted. The hat spoke up, "It has been a while since I was worn by someone older than eleven. It's nice to have an engaging conversation," the hat paused before it started chuckling, "I'll hold you that, but for now, enjoy SLYTHERIN!"

She stood up and gently passed the Sorting Hat to Harek and made her towards Andromeda. She quietly asked, "Mind if I join you? It doesn't seem right to sit with the first years."

Andromeda wasn't sure if she happy or not about Perdita joining them, the girl seemed nice but looked like she might attract trouble, but then again, she wouldn't be boring to be around. "Do you think there is enough room for Harek to join us?" she asked. Andromeda rolled her eyes at the way some of her friends didn't seem to believe her. With Perdita in Slytherin, she'll be able to make sure whatever happens with Ted remains a secret.

Andromeda started to make room for the new girl's boyfriend when Lucy verbalized her disbelief. She was cut off by the hat shouting, "SLYTHERIN!" before she could get half of her sentence out. There were a few smirks but no one said anything until Harek sat down across from Andromeda. The food arrived a minute after he sat down.

As everyone was serving themselves, Harek and Perdita were glancing up and down the table, obviously not finding something. "You can always ask an elf for whatever you are looking for. Kelly Kingswitch, by the way," the girl to Perdita's right said. Kelly was a tall, wiry girl with a pretty face framed by strawberry blonde locks. She pointed to a much shorter girl with soft brown hair, "Don't mind Lucy, she forgets to filter her thoughts when she is excited."

"Great, way to make me seem weird, Kel," Lucy huffed before turning to the two newest Slytherins, "My name is Lucy Marcelle, feel free to call me Marcy. I have to ask, what took so long with the Sorting Hat?"

"Yeah," Kelly added, "It also spoke aloud, usually all the hat does is sing his song and yell out your house."

Perdita smiled and replied after she finished chewing and wiped her mouth, "I had a nice conversation with the Sorting Hat and discovered that he gets very bored during the school year, so I promised him I would visit."

"I promised to visit Hattathias as well, he mentioned wanting to see how the school has changed, so I figure we could help him out, especially considering he was the first to really welcome us here," Harek added while he poked at his potatoes.

"Oh, good, I was worried I would have to convince you to do something nice for Hattathias after he told me a few things about the school," she responded. Neither were paying attention to the confusion of their new housemates' faces.

"Hang on, the Sorting Hat is named Hattathias?" Andromeda interrupted after realizing the two weren't going to stop and explain anything on their own.

Harek smiled after he set down his cup, "Well, it turned out that in the all the years of his existence, no one bothered to give him a name, so I offered a few and he liked Hattathias, it is amazing how little time a conversation with him takes."

After Lucy and Kelly got over how strange Harek and Perdita were, they spent the rest of dinner chatting about various things and by the time the food was cleared, they had all become friends. Andromeda discovered that they both were quite studious with Harek favoring the application and Perdita favoring the theory of magic. By the time they arrived at the their house commons, Andromeda invited Perdita to share her dorm room if she wasn't given her own, since there were an odd number of fifth year girls before she arrived.

As a prefect, Lucy explained to them the expectations and rules as a Slytherin, "We are the house of cunning and ambition, which means we strive to be the best. Even with only the little we've talked about, I know you two won't have trouble with classes, but we aren't Ravenclaws, so we are expected to be more than just studious. Professor Slughorn, the head of our house, requires everyone to join at least one club to 'make friends' but we all know he wants us to do everything we can to win the house cup."

Almost as if summoned by mentioning him, Professor Slughorn greated and ushered them into the Slytherin common room, "Welcome, welcome, Mister Jameson, Miss Barnes, I see you have been told who I am by Miss Marcelle. I am quite excited to have you two here, especially since I heard you're well traveled. I also heard something about your parents being researchers?" The chubby potion master vigorously shook their hands and lead them with a hand on their shoulder to the center of the room while he talked. Harek and Perdita both sent a questioning glance to their friends who gave them a reassuring nod.

"These two have joined us in our great house but have missed so much. Headmaster Dumbledore has asked me to help arrange their education here. Tomorrow I will be facilitating some tests to see if they need any special attention in order to take the OWLs without the usual five years of directed schooling to pass it with top grades. This means we will have to help them get into the Slytherin spirit that you all know so well.

I wanted to make sure everyone would keep an eye out for all of our new snakes and help them out if they find themselves slipping. That is all, so I think I will let you get back to enjoying each other's company."

The jovial teacher dismissed the students' attention and they left to go about their own business. Perdita and Harek attempted to rejoin them, but Professor Slughorn directed them towards Marcus Rendere, Lucy's fellow prefect and all around oaf of a traditionalist. "I hope Harek isn't roomed with him, Rendere is such a knob," Andromeda commented before returning her attention back to her friends. Her question slipped from her mind when she noticed their confused expression.

"He's a knob? Like a handle?" Lucy asked.

Realizing that she accidentally used a muggle insult she picked up from Ted, Andromeda blushed lightly before explaining, "It's a way to insult insufferable arses like him without him realizing and landing me in trouble. I recently learned it." She felt she was getting better at thinking on her feet because of her soon-to-be boyfriend. An almost hidden smirk teased at her lips at the thought of becoming ever more Slytherin because of a Hufflepuff.

Lucy and Kelly immediately recognized her devious expression. "Andi?" Kelly intoned with a short pause, "It's not even the second day of classes; what are you planning?" Worry crossed Andromeda's face. Lucy continued Kel's interrogation as they moved away from the others and lowered their voices, "I knew something was weird about how you interacted with those two."

Andromeda's thoughts immediately went to the embarrassing situation she and Ted were caught in by them and how the Matron thought she was dating him. Her two best friends' eyes narrowed at her reaction to the comment. Kelly pressed further, "You're hiding something about them."

"Not really. I mean, I did meet them before the feast, but-" her denial was cut off when Lucy grabbed her and Kelly started tickling. Andromeda managed to stifle her usual shriek from being tickled and managed to squirm free before Kelly grabbed and her and Lucy tickled. "Tell us or we get serious," they threatened.

"No!" She almost squeaked, "Fine! I'll tell you, you nosy bints!" Her insult lacked any venom and belied how desperate Andromeda was to recover her dignity. "When I met them, Harek and Perdita had shown up using an experimental portkey and they had to meet with the Headmaster. This happened right before dinner."

Lucy rolled her eyes at her attempt to placate them with boring information, "I know that's not all. I can smell the juicy gossip you are hiding and I plan on exploiting it."

"Stars above, you are persistent!" Andromeda complained, getting a chuckle from Kelly, "I saw them cast some pretty incredible magic."

"And?"

She sighed, "I saw Harek without a shirt on and -"

She was cut off a gasp from Kelly, who suddenly gripped her hand and started bouncing excitedly, "Lucky bint! Did he hold you in his arms? Could you feel his magic? Did he sweep you off your feet?" Kelly read far too many trashy romance novels.

She did her best to stop Kelly's rant from continuing by pressing down on her shoulders. After the girl stilled, Andromeda spoke again, "Nothing like that. What I was going to say was that he was covered scars."

"Sexy scars?" Kelly asked hopefully.

"Battle scars, the kind I am scared to know about. I overheard Perdita mentioning some of the things he has done and they were unbelievable. If she hadn't been so sincere I would have thought her mad."

"Like what?" Lucy asked before noticing Perdita returning to them without Harek, "Hey, what did the professor do with Harek?" This caused Andromeda to quickly school herself and change her mindset. She turned around to witness Perdita sigh and roll her eyes in exacerbation. They chuckled and then Lucy explained, "Professor Slughorn likes to collect interesting students so he can brag about them later." She looked like she was about to protest, so Lucy raised a calming hand and added, "You two are new and exciting, he should calm down in month, after he gets to know you."

Perdita let out a small sigh and smiled at them, "After he tried to persuade us two join his potions research club, he handed Harek over to that arrogant boy to be shown where he was sleeping, Rendere?" A quick nod from the three friends informed her that her opinion was shared of correctly named wizard. "Anyway, that boy immediately started telling us about his 'many' accomplishments. Harek took his focus in order for me to escape."

They all shared a quiet laugh. Before anyone spoke again, they watched as Harek endured Rendere when all he did was inflated his own ego. He cast them an eye roll and a wink followed by mouthing something that caused Perdita to beam in response. He had said something before mouthing good night, but Andromeda couldn't quite understand it. While Perdita silently conveyed her thanks and apology, Kelly pulled Lucy and her head in close and whispered, "They are totally a couple! They are adorable together!"

Lucy calmed her down this time, but not enough because when Perdita turned back to them, Kelly all but pounced on her, "By Morgana, you two are adorable together! When did you start dating? Did he just tell you he loves you?" The poor girl froze with a blush and Lucy had to pull their energetic friend back.

When the girl recovered, she gave them a weaker and more bashful denile than she had when questioned by Matron Pomfrey. The three shared a quick glance before dragging Perdita off to Andromeda's room for more details about just about everything, talking late into the night.


	6. You Wake in a Dungeon

**Author's Note: First thing I have to say is sorry for the late post. I specifically made sure that I was a few chapters ahead of the posts so I could post on time for instances like these, but my work schedule has been so crazy I haven't had a chance to sit down on my computer. On the bright side, I earned a ton of overtime. The other delay is that I written and thought out a bunch of details that help flesh out a character's drives. The first I can think of is Ted's goat story came from, it had taken me a while to figure out how to write it without the use of flashback or exposition. I am working on introducing some new characters and that always causes a spike of pain in my lower 'backstory.'**

 **As always, all comments are appreciated and I hope you enjoy.**

 **P.S. There will be puns.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 6 - You Wake in a Dungeon_

Hermione woke slowly to what felt like a soft caress of her body as she shifted. Her mind was still drifting about in a dream caused by the almost rabid chatter she was pulled into by Lucy, Kelly, and Andi. Hermione shifted and started to roll over. She felt the gentle tickle across her stomach, mumbling along with the last wisps of the dream as it slipped away. Her alertness returned slowly.

She smiled as she recalled the night before. Her three new friends had been incredibly welcoming. She was quickly brought up to speed on the important gossip by Lucy, Kelly had all the information about who was a couple or was interested in someone, and Andi informed her of the powerful players of the school and the best ways to deal with them.

Hermione had been surprised to learn that the three girls were known by non-Slytherins as the Evil E's, a name they half-heartedly complained about, and that she was quickly enlisted into their group with the nickname of Dia. She learned that they were called that because of how they responded to untoward advances from self-entitled students, not all of them dirty minded boys. They had all laid out bets on how many gormless boys would be hexed before the whole school knew not to mess with her. Hermione couldn't stop grinning at how good of friends they all were already.

After Kelly and Lucy left for bed some time after midnight, Andi turned serious and asked her and Harek not to reveal her interest in Ted Tonks. She was promptly reassured that it would only be their business if they needed to talk about it or someone got hurt. She was immediately hugged and thanked profusely.

She had borrowed a set of Andi's sleepwear. She had been forced to explain her undergarments, especially her brassiere, to her friends. The wizarding world was quite far behind the mundane world in everything that wasn't a car, and even then, barely any knew how to drive, let alone maintain them. Promises were made for shopping trips and tours of all the best mundane things. Hermione had told them that she and Harek were going to make a trip to Diagon Alley at some point during the week and she would scout things out and bring back some smaller trinkets for them.

Hermione stroked the nightwear, it was made of Acromantula silk. She made the decision to get her own set, no matter the cost, and maybe see if she could get some undergarments made up with it. She was suddenly embarrassed at the idea that she was willing to spend so much money, as silk from those monstrosities was undoubtedly expensive, on something that wasn't books or for school. She had to reassure herself that it was okay to like girly things like this, she was a girl after all. A pretty one at that, her friends had assured her. According to her new 'besties', something Lucy insisted that they were, she was going to get a lot of practice hexing all the boys who noticed her. Maybe Harry might notice as well.

Hermione mentally slapped that thought from her head. She got up and stretched. She showered, using some Andi's less personal toiletries at her insistence, and dressed in her clothes from yesterday. They had been cleaned and mended and smelled lightly of a floral breeze. She had transfigured a toothbrush before she realized that Andi only used Gingivia's Purifying Philter and had nothing else. She sighed and swished some around in her mouth as she read the label. The concoction seemed more focused on making your breath smell nice for intimacy than actually cleaning your mouth. She now had the first things she was going to bring back from London for the girls.

She left her sleeping roommate, it was only half past seven, a bit of a lay in compared to her normally being ready an hour earlier. Hermione found a peaky looking Harry drowsily propping himself against the masonry of the fireplace. "G'morning," he greeted her as he pushed himself off the wall, "I figured we should talk about some things without anyone else around."

Hermione responded with a soft smile and summarized what she had learned about the school from her friends before asking Harry what happened to him. "Well, after showing me my room, which I have to myself, some of the guys attempted to give me a true Slytherin welcome; they did their best to simultaneously pump me for information, establish my place in their pecking order, and become friendly enough to say they had lent a hand to settle me in.

They didn't expunge any pureblood supremacy, it was more a general sort of pompousness and self-importance. I'm not sure I want to deal with this Slytherin highbrow political game. I think we should try to stay out of the spotlight."

As he was talking, Hermione had cast a privacy charm, learned from Lucy, and started them towards the great hall. "I don't think that is possible, especially with our arrival and, according to Kelly, how many people are interested in us."

"Ah, so we are we mysterious transfers that people want to figure out, at least they don't have too many expectations of us."

"Actually, Kelly meant more that a bunch of students found us attractive and once they know more about our aptitudes, we may find ourselves sought after."

Harry stopped and looked surprised. "I have been waiting for that to happen to you, I mean you are all sorts of brilliant and beautiful, but I never thought there was a chance in people being interested in 'just' Harry." Her blush at his comment was unnoticed. He frowned for a second, "Well, 'just' Harek, not Harry. Still should be interesting."

Hermione took his arm in her's and patted his hand as they continued walking. "It's a strange sort of fresh start for the both of us. One that I plan on taking full advantage of, especially with friends like never before." Harry nodded in agreement. They quietly and comfortably stayed shoulder to shoulder the rest of the way to the great hall.

Before they entered the well trafficked hallway in front of the great hall, Hermione canceled the privacy spell and spoke, "When we get another chance alone, I want to talk to you about what Hattathias told me." He nodded absentmindedly while watching Ted Tonks help escort a herd of first year Badgers along with two other older students. As a true Hufflepuff, Tonks was lending a hand even though he wasn't a prefect.

"I will remember to remind you, but first, I have an idea, " Harry said casually, as if his ideas didn't usually involve life and death.

"I'm going to regret this," she said to herself before asking him, "what's your idea and how much trouble can we get in for it?"

"Nothing bad. I assure you, madam, that not one soft, brown hair on you pretty head will be at risk!" he retorted with a sarcastic, posh facade. Continuing with the accent, "I am merely suggesting that we take advantage of the lack of Slytherin and Gryffindor early risers and status as uninformed transfer students to expand our social circles beyond the limits of green and silver."

She had to laugh at his early morning antics. Despite not being a natural morning person, he always managed rally himself to match the energy of whomever he was with. Without Ron to set a sedentary pace, Harry only took a few minutes with her to come up to full steam. "So what is my part in your devious plan?" Hermione asked as they stepped into the hall.

"I'll go sit with the Hufflepuffs and make a connection with Tonks and the first years, maybe you can find something to talk about with some of the Ravenclaws over there, there is bound to be a few over there you could strike up an interesting conversation with," he replied as he nodded towards the dining table partially filled with blue and bronze robes and enough books to fill a sizable library.

"Fine, but if this starts a rumor going that I'm a know-it-all bookworm, I will blame you." He laughed at her stern expression and saluted before heading towards the first years.

He hadn't thought of a way to approach them yet, so when he overheard one of the first years complaining about having to get up so early for breakfast he saw a way in. He plopped himself down near Tonks and beside the first years, "I know, right? Who in the world would want to get up early to study magic, it almost takes the fun out of it." Harry huffed and puffed like an upset toddler and succeeded in making several of the eleven year olds laugh. While the mood was still light he introduced himself again, "Hi everyone, I'm Harek, fellow firsty. Us firsties need to stick together, and since you've all been here longer than me, I was hoping you would help me out."

He cast a smile and a wave around the table, leaning forward so he could take a look at everyone. Two of the children spoke up together, repeating on of the mantras of the House, "Hufflepuffs are always willing to lend a hand!"

He grinned at the response as it gave him an idea that would make the twins proud. He cast a targeted Disillusionment spell on his hands and wand. "Thanks wonderful, thank you, especially since I seem to have misplaced mine," he pondered casually, doing his best impression of an Alice in Wonderland character as he slowly held up his chameleoned hands. The spell wasn't perfect, the colours shifted a split second behind any movement he made. It was subtle enough that the first years didn't notice as some of them giggle and a few panicked a bit.

Feeling a little sorry for worrying some of them, Harry added, "Well, I guess I've to go look for them later. They couldn't have gotten far on their own." As he finished waving his arms about as a cover for the wand movements of a spell. He winked at Tonks, who realized that the newly minted Slytherin was trying to create a way to hang out with him. Tonks noticed Perdita was doing something similar with the Ravenclaws, who appeared to be having an animated discussion with several of the Ravens.

Harry whispered, " **Seev Sev Tet: Tawm** ," and a conjured a left hand that tried to run about. He quickly snatched it off the table and made his right hand appear. He made display of struggling with the hand before dropping it and letting scurry down the table. " **Finite Incantatem**!" He called out, purposely missing his target, "Quick, someone grab it!"

There was a scramble of first years diving about. A particularly smart blonde girl cast **Wingardium Leviosa** on it as it jumped from the table. The construct flailed about helplessly. The girl brought the hand back to Harry without stopping the spell. He grabbed the hand and bowed to girl, "Thank you little lady. I would use the spell to fix this but as you can see, my hands are full, so I must call on your expertise to help me yet again!" The girl blushed and giggled at the attention.

She hesitated to answer, so he continued talking as if requesting help from royalty, "I know a clever lady like you can help me. The spell is simple and works on most charms: the incantation is Finite Incantatem, the wand movement is the outline of a shield starting with the top left corner," Harry paused to roughly show the pattern with a gesture of his visible hand, "but the most important part of the spell is really, truly wanting the magic to stop and imagining it stopping."

The first year gave a nervous nod and pointed her wand at his hand. Harry spotted Tonks moving towards them, "Harek, let me help, that is a second-" he stopped talking when Harry quickly shook his head, furrowed his eyebrows, and pursed his lips to silently quiet him. Their aside went unnoticed by the now intently focused girl. Her nose had scrunched up in concentration as she tried to cast the spell.

When nothing happened, Harry knelt down and looked her in the eyes. "You have to expect the spell to work, not just hope it will, and if you think you can't, you probably won't," he told in an encouraging tone, "And I know that a clever first year who figured out a such a helpful use of the levitation spell can cast this general counter spell."

The girl closed her eyes before trying again. A little sleight of hand and purposely weakening his spell allowed the girl to cancel his helping hand charm and make it look like his hand was reattached. He immediately picked the now grinning eleven year old up and spun once around with her. She screeched with excitement and he began to prostrate himself before her, "Many thanks, my little saviour! I like to think I would have been alright without my left hand, but I shudder to think how it would have left me! My I know the name of the clever enough to save this Slytherin?"

"Sarah Bennett," she replied with a giggle at his antics and puns.

"Well, Lady Bennett, as thanks for your help during this dire situation, I, Harek Jameson, will lend you a hand whenever you might need one, be it for help with schoolwork or anything else, all you need to do is ask, but now I must insist we eat breakfast and do our best to get to class on time."

The two sat next to each other and were joined by Tonks for the rest of breakfast. Harek happily engaged the first years and any Hufflepuff who showed the courage to ask him a question. He told them versions off his adventures as stories about his ancestors and passed credit of his non-standard knowledge off as from helping out with his and his best friend's parents' research. By the time they had eaten their fill, half of Hufflepuff had heard at least one of his stories and saw him to be an incredibly welcoming and friendly person, especially for a Slytherin.

He had been chatting happily with Tonks about fantasy books that they thought might have been written by people who had real experiences with magic. Harry insisted that Alice in Wonderland was a tale about a first generation witch while several Hufflepuffs, including Tonks, maintained that Lord of the Rings was written by a squib or that at the very least Tolkien knew a wizard. They started to discuss Kafka when Professor Slughorn spoke up over the sounds of the great hall, "Mister Jameson, are you in the hall? I need to talk to you and Miss Barnes about what you are doing today." Harry turned around stood slightly to locate his head of house. "Ah, well, what are you doing over there? It's a bit earlier than usual but I only just found out I have a rather temperamental shipment of ingredients I need to see to, so please do come here."

Hermione was already standing next to the professor near the side door they had entered through the night before. She smiled at him and asked, "Did you really need to make such a spectacle of yourself?" before turning to follow their professor.

"Probably not, but the firsties got to have a bit of magical fun and I got to show off how fun and friendly I am as well as that I have enough magic to stop anyone clever enough from wanting to mess with me," he replied, joining in step behind Horace Slughorn.

"Look at you, acting like a snake already."

"And I suppose the rumor that there is a betting pool over who is going to successfully ask you out first happened on its own?" Harry continued poking fun at Hermione when she tried to act innocent, "A sixth year Gryffindor was brash enough that I overheard him stating that he put fifteen galleons on himself to have a date with you by the end if the month."

She blushed and whispered so their professor wouldn't overhear, "It was Kelly and Andi's idea to set up a rigged pool with some of their influences in order to get some spending money that their parents don't know about because I may have promised to bring them to London for some non-magical shopping. Goodness, saying that out loud really makes me sound like such a girl."

"You are a girl, but considering me one as well because I desperately need a trip to London for some clothes that don't involve robes. Plus, I really want to be there to see how three full-blooded witches deal with our side of the world," he commented. She looked relieved and the two start chuckling to themselves. Their professor cast them a slightly annoyed glance over his shoulder at them for lollygagging behind him.

He lead them with a quick pace, explaining what was to happen, "First thing we need to establish is what you know with a small test that every teacher prepared a section for. Near the end are the electives, such as muggle studies, ancient runes, and care for magical creatures, which is dead useful for a potion master looking get along well in this world. I am, of course, speaking from personal experience, so I am happy to help out, especially if you are in my potions club or are interested in my occasional, modest soirees."

He had trailed off for moment to bring his focus back to informing them of what they had to do today instead of trying to ingratiate himself, "Ah, right! You only have to fill out the sections of the electives you are interested in taking here. Luckily for me, Mistiana Wren, our caretaker, has agreed to oversee the four hour test with a thirty minute break in the middle until I am able to get back.

After you finish the test, you will be free until two, when I will collect you both from our common room and bring you to my potions classroom for a short practical lest. After which I will bring you to the next professor to test your applications, and they will bring you to your next one until all chosen and core course practicals have been done, excluding history, of course."

With his explanation done, no one spoke until they were directed into a random classroom with a stern looking woman and the largest dog either of them had ever seen, outside of ones with three heads. The woman reminded Harry of the well disciplined soldiers he had seen when he was younger. She wore a stern neutral expression and stood straight with her right hand tucked behind her and her left resting comfortably on the back of the dog sitting just as still as she was. It had too intense of a presence to be a normal dog. The beast of a crup looked more like a small bear. It easily watched them enter the classroom with its head well above the desks.

"Thank you again, Miss Wren, for agreeing to watch over these two for their tests," Professor Slughorn said as he directed Harry and Hermione to be seated.

"It was the least I could do after you helped fix up Mister Cotton. Do you think you will be gone for the entire test?" She asked. Her voice was surprisingly gentle. She had a decidedly different air about her than the only other caretaker Harry knew. Her entire body seemed ready to strike and it was fairly unnerving. Only the bold or reckless would try something while under her scrutiny. He wondered if his father and godfather were either even more talented or more foolish than he ever imagined.

"Ah, well, always happy to lend a hand. After all, what is a little tit-for-tat between friends, yes?" Professor Slughorn said with a laugh. He clapped his hands together and pulled a few too many things out from from his vest pocket. He handed them each a large sealed scroll, several quills, and a bottle of ink, speaking as he did, "Here is everything you need, all the classes are in alphabetical order starting with the core classes. Also, at the very bottom is a list of all the extracurricular classes and clubs and who runs them. Simply mark the ones you might be interested in and I will get you in touch with the appropriate people."

The door swung shut on its own accord after the professor left the room. Miss Wren flicked her noticeably grey wand out at the chalkboard in the room and returned it behind her back in smooth motion. A clock appeared on it and began ticking. "You may begin now."


	7. Meeting the Professors

**Author's Note: I would have posted this chapter on Thursday except that I never got around to the one last proof read that I like to do before submitting, so I kwpt delaying. I have one more chapter fully written and edited before I have used up my writing buffer. This means the update time will probably be closer to a fortnight per chapter.**

I **recieved a message from VonPelt about the names Harry and Hermione are using and thought maybe I could explain how they about. Hermione, being a booklover, came up with a pen name when she was younger. For those who don't know Perdita is Hermione's mother in Shakespeare and a granger is a type of farm storage building, hense Barnes. It was something that she remembered at the time. Harry, despite being fairly level headed during life or death situations panicked because coming up with names on the spot is difficult. Plus I like the name Harek and thought it is hilarious that he fumbled his name and is stuck with it.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 7 -_ Meeting the Professors

After he had had such an interesting breakfast with Harek, Ted expected the rest of his morning to be just as exciting. He was disappointed. With Herbology immediately after breakfast, he had hoped for a chance to talk with Andromeda, but Professor Sprout had her class in a classroom instead of the greenhouses. She taught them about the more common pests that seek out magical gardens, the dangers and damages they bring, and how they have been dealt with in the past.

Before Professor Sprout started teaching, she informed them that their next class would involve the application of pest protection in the greenhouses. The class involved quite a bit of note taking and they were sent off with a small essay to write on the history and modern methods of protecting a magical garden from an assigned vermin. He had to research garden gnomes.

Potions had been a fairly tame experience. Professor Slughorn taught them the Draught of Peace. He informed the class that the potion was incredibly useful for calming bad nerves and dealing with panic attacks about the OWLs and NEWTs but that he didn't recommend taking them while under the influence of the potion, it had often lead to the test taker performing far below standard, and then being too calm about the failure.

Ted had grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch and headed to the library to research garden gnomes, because he really had no clue that they existed beyond the plaster and ceramic statues his father enjoyed along with other odd yard decorations he picked up from his yearly business trips to different countries. Maybe he should bring something home for Christmas from the wizarding world, his father does always complain about vermin ruining his plants.

Ted's time in the library ended with him checking out the only three books he found that seemed informative. He had taken a little too long to pick up and was forced to run to his next class, which passed with the only thing of note was that he had managed to arrived in time. Luckily, he had Charms next and Professor Flitwick is his favorite teacher. He quickly made his way to the front of the class. Unfortunately, all the Gryffindors filled in behind him, forcing the nearest fellow yellow to be four seats away.

"Good afternoon, class," the professor almost cheered as he entered, "I am so glad to see all of you ready to learn just after summer. Now I know you have heard all about the OWLs for every class, so instead of wasting time, you are going to simply take one of these pieces of parchment that has everything that I can guarantee will be on the tests and what I think will likely be on it."

Several students, Ted included, started to get up to take the a study sheet but they were stopped when he spoke again, "Now instead of just handing these out, I want each of you to summon one to you, in order to shake out any cobwebs left over from your no doubt rigorous summer study habits." There were a few chuckles around the class before Professor Flitwick waved them on and reminded everyone that the spell was Accio plus whatever the caster was trying to summon.

The exercise passed quickly with only Lucas Brown, a Gryffindor who was a bit of an idiot savant when it came to transfiguration, taking more than four tries to summon the OWLs notes to them. Professor Flitwick congratulated the class, "Well done. Well done all. Now we are going to quickly get started on one of the most various, and frankly underestimated, charms focus: sound and more specifically, silencing spells.

I know everyone is aware of at least one silencing charm and I am sure everyone is quite familiar with the Sonorus charm from any Quidditch match. Silencing magic is quite intuitive when it comes to the simple charms but the number of variables that must be considered for the more complex spells require the same type of training as warding or curse-breaking.

Now, please open your books to chapter nine, sound and silences. I want you to read about silencing spells for the next fifteen minutes, however, to make this a little more interactive, I will silence the room for the duration. Anyone who hands in an explanation on how I cast it before the end of class will receive five points and won't have any assignment to do. Anyone who can tell me how I cast the spell in the next fifteen minutes will earn an additional twenty points and I would like to talk to you about several advanced extracurricular classes that could benefit you."

Some students looked excited by the professor's challenge while others looked resigned to fifteen minutes of boring silence. The shuffling of bags and books from the uninterested was cut off when the silencing spell took hold. Ted had watch the professor cast the spell, no words were spoken and the gesture had been a rising twirl followed by a flick. It wasn't anything like the two silencing spells he knew.

It was about ten minutes later when the silence was broken by a very loud voice, "EXCUSE US, OH, BIT LOUD… TESting, testing? There we go." The everyone's head had snapped up to stare at the door where an embarrassed Harek gave the class a small wave. Perdita was behind him flicking her wand back and forth several times before she stopped and smiled. Harek spoke again, "Sorry about interrupting. Professor Slughorn dropped us off for our Charms assessment with Professor Flit… professor?"

Harek had paused when he didn't see or hear Professor Flitwick. He raised his wand to cast something when the diminutive man all but rolled out from under his desk. The professor must have fallen off his stack of books in surprise at Harek's entrance without anyone noticing. He bounced up to his feet with a wide smile and waved the two in, "Wonderful to have you here. I see you have some experience with silencing charms for you to understand how to overcome it so quickly."

Perdita smiled warmly at him and spoke, much to the professor further surprise and enjoyment, "We have never studied them in detail, but I was able to figure enough of the Arithmancy out to slip around it."

Harek picked up with his own explanation, "And I have a pretty good sense of magic, so it's easy for me to push back against spells like these."

Professor Flitwick clapped his hands, which was odd as no sound was produced, and exclaimed, "Well done! Twenty points each to Slytherin for cross-discipline application of skill and ingenuity. I was hoping for a little spell analysis from the class and they have just under five minutes for this little challenge, so why don't we quietly discuss what I would like from you for your charms assessment while we wait?"

Ted looked back to a chart in the book, it showed the relationships of several common aspects of a silencing charm. Target, magnitude, exclusion, and fidelity. Those four cornerstones of a silencing spell without one, the spell wouldn't work, breaking one would cause all but the special ones to fail. The book had explained that overcoming one of the aspects of special and truly advanced silencing spells had varying results, usually it allowed someone to temporarily overcome them. Ted's mind kept returning to how odd it was that the professor could speak but his clap was silent.

It didn't help him when every third thought he had was about the magnitude of the silencing spell. He started thinking about what the professor told him. He smiled. He had managed to piece together the puzzle. Ted whipped and shouted as he pointed his wand at his mouth, " **Sonorus**!" His spell came out barely as loud as a whisper, but it was enough to cast with. Ted audibly cleared his throat, surprising the rest of the class, and raised a hand to ask a question.

"Yes, Mister Tonks?" Professor Flitwick said to on Ted.

"Thank you, professor," he said with a voice slightly louder than his regular volume, "I just wanted to inform you that I have figured out a way around your silencing spell and how you cast the spell."

"Well done, I will take your explanation on parchment whenever you are ready," the charms professor said with a smile, "and I would like to let the rest of you know that there are only a few minutes left before we carry on with class."

Ted quickly wrote up his explanation, signed it, cast a quick drying charm for the ink, and expertly banished the parchment to the center of Professor Flitwick's desk right as the small man resumed his perch on the stack of books. The man's eyes quickly read over the parchment in a few seconds. "Twenty-five points for Mister Tonks for exceptionally quick comprehension of the topic! Please don't pass any notes around to attempt to get out of homework, that, I assure you, will be punished the same way cheating on homework would," he informed Ted before glancing around the room with a smile. The smile reminded Ted of the professor's heritage when it turned into one of the almost snarling smiles he often saw while in Gringotts for a split second.

"Mister Jameson and Miss Barnes have agreed to assist me with some spell demonstrations with the various uses of silencing spell as well as their unique interaction with most types of magic," Professor Flitwick turned towards the two Slytherins and summoned two chairs from a closet to the side of the class with a flick of his wand, "Thank you for helping me, but you two can have a seat until after I explain the bit of reading they just did."

The two sat and listened for the next twenty minutes as he explained the four key aspects of silencing spells, several simple silencing spells and how they work according to those aspects, and briefly explaining how to cast three separate silencing charms. Only one of them he didn't know. The charm was called Pince's Private Parliament and was actually invented by the library's own Madam Pince. It worked on small areas, such as the tables in the library, and reduced a normal speaking voice to a whisper so not to bother anyone. He informed them that it had the unfortunate habit of collapsing whenever someone got too loud.

"Now, we will move on to the demonstrations," Professor said, "Afterwards, I will let you all practice the silencing spells I have explained to you and have them left on the board while I bring these two to their next assessment, and when I do leave, I want to know if anyone would be willing to stand off to the side and cast Finite Incantatem if any of the pairs manage to silence themselves at the same time?"

Ted raised his hand and spoke when the man nodded at him, "I can do that." He did his best to ignore the smirks on the two next to the professor, but he still ended up blushing a little bit.

"Thank you, Mister Tonks. Another five points to Tonks for volunteering to lend a hand," he called out with a now audible clap of his hands. Ted heard a few of the Gryffindors grumble about him being a teacher's pet and something about Hufflepuffs in general that made him shake his head. When Ted's attention returned to his teacher, he noticed that Perdita and Harek were standing away from Professor Flitwick's desk while he brought out two inkwells and set them to either side of his desk.

"To start off, I'd like you both to summon an ink well to you, followed by banishing it back to the desk, and don't worry about breaking them, I've charmed them to be unbreakable." The two nodded and casually summoned the the inkwells and banished them back to the desk. Professor Flitwick nodded his head and cast a spell on his desk, "Now I've placed the silencing charm that we went over earlier on my desk, Totalis Silentio. Now please try try to summon them again."

Perdita looked nervous for a second but they both acknowledged the request. She took a deep breath to focus herself. Harek simply closed his eyes while she did. They pointed their wands together. There was a brief pause before the two inkwells slowly accelerated towards them. When they caught the baubles, they turned to each other with huge smiles. Perdita threw hands up in victory with an exclamation, "YES! I finally did it! It's totally different than normally summoning something! I can't believe I didn't understand when you told me you had to bring the item with your magic, not call for it! It finally clicked when Professor Flitwick cast the silencing charm."

Harek managed to calm her down from her giddy explanation with cough and a chin bob towards a still stunned Professor Flitwick, as stunned as a world renowned duelist and someone raised by goblins could be. The rest of the class didn't seem to realize that what just happened was extraordinary. Unlike Ted who constantly talked to Professor Flitwick and learned his expressions, which were difficult for the average witch or wizard, leaving the rest of the class confused about the excitement. Ted was able to gage by his professor's reaction that Harek and Perdita had done something far beyond the rare student figuring out silent casting early. Their casting was visibly different than when they cancelled. It had been so completely casual, like checking the time. His thoughts drifted towards Andromeda and the outcome of last night.

His revery was ended when Professor Flitwick gently summoned that bottles back to his desk, "Wonderful performance with that casting, Mister Jameson, Miss Barnes, and if I had not witnessed this during an academic assessment, I would be inclined to award you each thirty points for your understanding of magic. Most students are ready for their NEWTs by the time they have such a succinct comprehension of magic.

Now I would like you to attempt to summon these two inkwells in the standard manner, as to illustrate several aspects of silencing charms, so please avoid any silent casting." The professor waved the two on and they tried to summon the bottles and failed. He waved them on again and said, "Now try as hard as you can to summon it without speaking any louder." The bottles only shifted a bit this time. "And now shout out the spell as well as focusing on the casting." The inkwells trembled and hopped once towards them before clattering on the stone floor.

"Thank you very much. Now can anyone tell me why the spell failed and only had an effect, though a noticeably weaker one, after these two shout? Ah, yes, Miss Linsley?" The professor seamlessly connected his question with calling on a student.

"Shouting the spell made it strong enough to overcome the silencing spell?" The Gryffindor asked from just behind him. Ted, along with everyone else, was mulling over the question and hadn't raised a hand yet. Talulah Linsley was one of her house's few bookworms, and true to her colours, had rushed forward with an answer.

"While that answer is correct, Miss Linsley, it is slightly misleading," she blushed a bit as he continued, "Shouting a spell does not normally make the spell stronger, it instead allows the magic to overcome, however slightly, the magnitude of a silencing spell.

Now most spells can be tracked by the light they emit but there are others, such as Accio, that are based on sound, making silence quite effective against them. Interestingly, many shield spells capitalize on this by including some type of silencing aspect to increase their effectiveness.

This is what leads us to the next demonstration of silencing spells: how they affect the caster instead of the target." He didn't have to direct the two Slytherins as they had already stepped into the middle of the classroom. Professor Flitwick conjured six mannequins and with several small gestures of his wand, he changed them into three distinct pairs. One pair sprouted a wild mass of hair on its head, the second was now sporting a fan held in front of its head and a mask over its face, and the last pair took a defiant stance and now had cocky smirk on its otherwise blank face.

"Now, I am going to ask you to cast several different charms at each pair, one for each of you, while there are several other sound related spells in effect. First up are the hairy mannequins with the hair loss curse, are you familiar with Calvorio?" he asked, receiving an easy nod from both of them. "I would like you to cast it on your silenced dummy," he paused to cast the spell, "and then once more after I have cast Pince's Private Parliament on you. Whenever you are ready." The two cast the spell and twin buzzing red balls of light rushed the targets before disappearing when they encountered the edge of the silencing spell. "Good! Now again," he commented after casting the muffling spell on them.

Harek and Perdita cast again but this time the red balls of light were significantly smaller and buzz was closer to a quiet hum before winking out of existence half a meter away from the hairy heads they were targeting. "Excellent. Now, I am going to remove the silencing charm on the mannequins and have you cast once before removing the spell on you two for the last casting of Calvorio," Professor Flitwick instructed. They waited a few seconds before casting the spell for a third time. The spell struck their targets but rather than removing a clear patch of hair, only a few clumps fell. Their last cast was just as loud and bright as the first. The spell engulfed most of the head and when the light faded, only a little bit of hair behind the ears remained attached.

"Well done. Now that spell was a sound based spell that can be completely negated, or even amplified, by sound spells. Now, moving on to the ones with the fans. Here you will be using the severing charm, Diffindo, to cut the fan and then to cut the mask without cutting the mannequin. We will start off with you being silenced, then quieted, and finally with the mannequins silenced and do try your best to cut only the mask. Ready? Good," he cast his spell when the two gave a brief nod. They attempted to cast while under the professor's spell, but the green light barely left their wands before it was snuffed out. The professor rearranged the spells affecting Harek and Perdita and they cast a second time. The green light left the wand and formed into a muted green slash of light, much smaller than the standard results. It barely had enough power to cut through the fan.

Ted took a moment to jot down the spells cast and their outcomes, he knew his professor well enough to realize his demonstrations were about more than teaching the class to cast a spell. From what Ted could figure out, the demonstration was less about testing the transfer students and more focused on displaying the fundamental behavior of sound magic. "That's probably going to be the homework," he quietly noted to himself.

Ted looked up from his notes when a clattering had caught his attention. Both of the masks had fallen to the floor. The best he could tell, both mannequins were undamaged and one mask had been bisected vertically and the other, horizontally. Professor Flitwick summoned the most recent target and their masks to check over the two's spell work. Ted looked over his notes while the teacher took a minute. Ted thought about how the two demonstration spells behaved differently. Before he could work out a revaluation about sound magic, his attention returned to the front of the class with the professor directed Harek and Perdita to their last spell victims.

Professor Flitwick raised his wand to his lips as he spoke, "Testing. Testing. One, Two, Three. Testing," and then flicked his wand at the mannequins. A bob of his wand had the mouths on them repeat his words as if a recording. "Now that we have the targets ready, I am going to have you cast a Silencio on them." The professor barely had to wait for the two to cast Silencio. He bobbed his wand at the mannequins and their mouths moved but no sound came out. "Now as you know, this particular spell only stops the target from producing sound, meaning sound based spells can reach the target unaffected," the professor cast Calvorio at the targets, striking unimpeded.

"Now, without your previous spell being cancelled, please cast the Cone of Silence on them," he instructed. Ted couldn't help but chuckle at Professor Flitwick's spell name, the man had explained had told Ted about his soft spot for some of the colonies' television comedies. The spell name had come from a spy show but he couldn't remember the name for the life of him. Perdita and Harek looked at each other puzzled. Their confusion was quickly noticed and he elaborated, "Ah, excuse me. The Cone of Silence is a personal name for the Sound Isolation spell."

A synchronized crescent with diagonal slash through it with an almost harmonized, " **Raumutum** ," had both mannequins glowing with a soft blue light that quickly faded away.

Professor Flitwick spoke again after the light disappeared, "One of the reasons we don't start working in depth with sound magic earlier is that it has reactions to other spells that can only be predicted with Arithmancy. Note that the mannequins have two different silencing charms on them." He bobbed his wand and the magical recording started to play again. Instead of being silent like before, Professor Flitwick's words rang out so loud that some students covered their ears.

After all the dazed students composed themselves, he drew their attention by casting another hair loss curse, this time it fizzled when it got close to the target. "With the demonstrations over with, I want you all to practice the silencing charms you have learned today while I bring Miss Barnes and Mister Jameson to their next assessment," the professor said. He waved his wand and their homework assignment appeared on the chalkboard. "As said earlier, anyone who hands in a correct explanation on the aspects of the silencing spell I cast while you read will not have to do the essay, but be aware that if the explanation about the spell is wrong, I will still expect the essay come next Tuesday."

With a small grin, Professor Flitwick directed the transfers out of the classroom and followed behind them. Just before the door shut, he popped his head back in and added, "In case any of you are feeling particularly bold and wish skip the spell practice in favor of leaving early, do keep in mind that only this classroom is currently muffled to the rest of the school, so any particularly bad mistakes outside of here are likely to be heard by a large number of others." A few of the students in red changed their minds and stopped packing up their bags.

Ted stopped himself from snorting. The small stature of the man and his often bubbly personality made people forget how serious he took learning, and how dangerous the man could be with magic and words. Ted got up from his desk and went to the front of the class as he had volunteered to. As he passed the the door he overheard Harek quietly speak to Perdita, "I never thought I'd see him make a Goblin promise to students, I wonder what changed?"

"Maybe he had to follow through with one? But I think it is more likely some blonde ponce complained to his father, just like the one we know."

"Makes me wish we could change things, the professors are so much more exuberant."

"Well, aging does tend to drain away at a person," Perdita responded matter of factly.

"So does war."

They both went silent before the quick, light steps of Professor Flitwick came closer, "Sorry about the wait you two. I had to check to see who would be able to take you next. We're off to see Professor Phemli for Defense Against the Dark Arts. While we are on the way, I hope we can talk a bit about magic and anything else that comes up. I'm sure you won't mind taking a long way about, I hardly get a chance to roam these halls without being on the lookout for trouble makers."

"That sounds great, professor," responded Perdita as they walked away. Ted barely heard her make a comment about a chance to explore and maybe something about a tour. His accidental eavesdropping left him even more curious about those two. They were incredibly interesting and were going to be fun to have around, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this year was going to be very important. Idiot. He rolled his eyes at himself. Nothing ominous or foreboding, this year was all about the OWLs, of course it was important. Ted's thoughts returned to charms as he mentally wrote an essay for the assignment despite not having to and watched his fellow students practice magic.

More than once had to step in to end a spell that had gone awry. The chime for the class to end as was helping out Brandon Thorton, a Hufflepuff, though only an acquaintance, who had managed to botch a spell so badly that he was now speaking backwards. Professor Flitwick had come back in right as Ted finished packing up. "Remind me to talk to you about Hogwarts Choir and the Dueling Club some time before the weekend, Mister Tonks. Take care," he said as he started organizing his desk and reading through some of the explanations of his silencing spell.

"Thank you, professor. Have a nice day," he replied before hurrying on to his Ancient Runes class.


	8. New Friends and Poor Tempers

**Author's Note: Thanks to a guest review, I have learned that some people may feel that a time travel story full of predetermination is something that is disappointing, but I believe that a story is all about the journey and character growth. That being said, this isn't a time travel story that is forcing Harry and Hermione into helpless watching the past unfold to create the future they know. The two are** **operating** **with the belief that they cannot change the past, similar to the way Back to the Future handles time travel. A more in depth discussion of Harry and Hermione's plans is going to happen in the next chapter.**

 **Hopefully, from here on out, I will be able to release my chapters in a more reliable manor. I would also like to note that I don't know how to use much of this site's resources such as the Beta Reader system and that I have muted alerts from the site because it was starting to cause clutter, so a response to questions and comments will likely be a bit delayed. I just wanted to make sure I didn't seem like I was snubbing anyone interested enough in the story to write something.**

 **Enjoy reading and hope to hear from any of you.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 8 - New Friends and Poor Tempers_

Andromeda was so excited at the prospect of getting her crush as her boyfriend and having a new roommate, no, a friend that would keep her secrets, that she quickly became bored with any class that didn't involve her having time with Ted, her now three best friends, and Perdita's boyfriend, Harek. Potions class got her hopes up before smashing them. Professor Slughorn had paired the class up with Slytherins and Ravenclaws put together. To top it off, she was relegated to the back of the class where the truly horrible brewers tried to hide.

To make matters worse, the potions master only gave a brief explanation of the potion they were making before throwing the instructions on the blackboard along with a few mostly helpful preparation hints before he practically ran out the classroom with a greedy grin on his face. At least the Ravenclaw she was with, Pandora Peregrine, was one of the less knowledge rabid blue and bronze. The poor excuse for a lesson took a turn for the better when Andromeda started chatting with the blonde. She was distinctly sylvan, everything she talked about would gravitate towards the nature of magic and the magic of nature.

By the end of class they had agreed to continue being potion partners so long that could sit a little closer Andromeda's friends. Her response worried her, "Oh, of course we can, I'd rather like to sit with someone who wants to talk to me."

Andromeda took a deep breath and slowly reached out her hand. She gently placed it on Miss Peregrine's. She flinched before Andromeda was able to begin her piece. She knew she had to be even more delicate, so she spoke with a soft voice, "Miss Peregrine, Pandora, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to and working with you today, so much so that we just made plans to do so every Potions class, but beyond that, I would very much like to be your friend."

The girl's breath hitched for and she only managed to give a small nod while she fully processed Andromeda's words. Pandora sat there while Andromeda went about cleaning and packing all of her potion supplies. When she turned to ask Pandora about cleaning up, she stopped in surprise, "Pandora? Do want to clean the tools or the cauldrons? I am fine with...Pandora?" The sylvan girl had a smile that stretched impossibly wide across her face.

Andromeda was a few seconds away from waving her hand in front of her new friend when she quickly divided the tools between the two cauldrons and passed one to her, "It's always better to do the boring things together!" Andromeda was all but dragged to the wall of sinks by a skipping Pandora. She couldn't help but laugh. The girl's energy was as infectious as her attitude. They talked about what they found boring and fun and how both improved when with a friend.

Out of the blue, Pandora leaned in close as they were drying off the tools by hand. Magic was always forbidden in the potions laboratory because of the unpredictable reactions from bad brewing and volatile ingredients was dangerous enough for the untrained without involving spells. The blonde spoke only loud enough for Andromeda to hear her, "I don't want to impose on our new friendship, but would you like to sit together during our next class?"

"Pandora, I thought we already established that we are friends and partners?"

"Oh, right, I just wanted to make sure. I've never had a partner in Ancient Runes before."

"Ancient Runes? Oh, OH!" Andromeda dropped the ladle she was handling and brought her hands to her mouth, damp drying cloth and all. The clatter hushed the rest of the class briefly. "I am so sorry! I totally forgot that we had Ancient Runes together!"

"Oh," she responded obviously crestfallen. The girl seemed to lose colour and turn grey as she shrunk into herself. Andromeda ignored the ladle rolling towards the edge and dropped the cloth so she could quickly wipe off her hands on a spare towel. Pandora didn't notice anything but the cutting board she was scrubbing until she was turned by her shoulders and hugged tightly by Andromeda.

Both were unaware of how emotional they were. No tears were shed, but both of their faces were screwed tight to hold them back. "I am happy to partner with you," Andromeda explained with a small frog in her throat, "The class is hard enough for me that I don't notice anything except the professor and my work. If anything, you might not want to partner with me. I truly am that bad at the class."

They both had a tired laugh and returned to cleaning up. "I think that is an excellent reason to work with you," she told Andromeda after a few sniffles and a throat clearing.

"If you think you can help me, I would love your assistance." The Ravenclaw beamed at her and nodded.

Pandora had finished cleaning and started to pack up their potions kits while she wrapped up the last of the drying. Andromeda overheard a comment from the sink to the right, "Looks like the rumors were right about the Evil E's. Ugh. She's going after the March Hare? Totally ruins it for my imagination."

At this, Andromeda spun and faced to the two gossiping boys with a glare. The boars, unaware that they had been talking so loudly, paled when she angrily stalked up to them. She brandished whatever she happened to have in her hands at the two annoyances, the drying cloth and the last tool needing drying, which just so happened to be her silvered potions knife. Wanting to poke the nearest one in the chest as she spoke, Andromeda had to hold herself as well as her temper back when she remembered it was a knife and not ladle or stirrer in her hand, "Listen up you two moronic wastes of sperm, you have not only insulted my friend, you have insulted a Black. Need I remind you what happened to the last boy who bothered me? If I ever hear something insulting escape either of your blubbering lips, even just in my approximate direction, I will make you wish that you had only bothered me. Is. That. Clear?"

During her rant, each step forward she took had them taking one backwards. The cowed boys flinched when she ended with such a puissant question. They had managed to back past two sinks and into a wall in an attempt to distance themselves from the furious woman. The two were all but frozen in fear. No one in the class moved. Most were scared of her blatant aggression, but those who knew her well enough simply watched with interest. Pandora had tilted her head in thought as she watched.

Andromeda decided to drive her point home. She played with the tip of the knife and lowered her voice, "There is a magical potency boosting potion that I've wanted to make, but I never could find one the last ingredient. Do you want to know what that is?" One of the boys hesitantly nodded while the other, along with several boys Andromeda saw in her peripheries, jerked his head no. A vicious smile spread on her face. "A wizard's wand." When the two moved their hands protectively to their back pocket, she shook her head and pointed downward. Not caring if the fools understood, Andromeda returned to her sink and put her knife away.

Pandora was waiting by the door, so Andromeda quickly left to join her. She paid no attention to how several of the boys in the room were now statues fearfully watching her leave. The two left without a glance back. They walked to their Runes class alone. Almost their entire year took that elective, so there were four classes instead of the usual two and Kelly, Lucy, and Ted all were in a different one than Andromeda and Pandora. If Andromeda was honest with herself, it was a good thing too because the stress of the class made her rather curt. She hoped Pandora wouldn't take offense.

Pandora was forewarned about her temperament when involving Ancient Runes. "I don't mind," Pandora replied airily, "We all have something that sets us in a mood. I find mornings, poor weather, and an overabundance of grey affect me so."

"Thank you for being so understanding, I -" she stopped when Pandora giggled and shook her head in amusement.

"Andromeda Black, I have witnessed your stress for the last two years. If I recall correctly, you had forty two visits to the infirmary last year and twenty five the year before," the Ravenclaw informed her. Andromeda had no idea if she actually counted or if there was a tally somewhere. Pandora held the door to the classroom open for her and then followed. Once they were seated, Andromeda was keenly aware that several other students got up and moved to avoid the risk of becoming collateral damage.

"There is tally in the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey told me it is to help class scheduling to avoid overfilling it, but I think the tally has to do with tracking some kind of creature because both Newt Scamander and Rubeus Hagrid have the most total visits and neither of them finished school," Pandora continued as if they hadn't been sitting silently for two minutes, "But then again, you are in line to set the record before the start of the first week of November of your sixth year."

Before Andromeda could question her odd statistics, the professor came in. "Welcome back, students," Professor Watham greeted. He quickly took attendance and had a stern expression when her name was called. He wore the obvious look of someone being rude. The uncouth man then spoke to the class, "A seating arrangement will only be necessary on the days we work with runes. Now that you are fifth year students, most classes will have the beginning spent collecting and assigning homework while the rest will be used for predominantly self-directed rune etching.

This year you will be completing two large products. The first will be completed before the Winter Holidays, the second will be completed three weeks before OWLs so that I can give you a grade for the second half of the class as well as give you a chance to fix some of its problems with my advice. During the last three weeks, the class will be spent reviewing runes for the test. You will submit your project to whomever is administering the tests after demonstrating and explaining its function. This combined with identifying some rune schemes with be the practical portion of the tests."

The professor disliked her. She could accept it if it was only about the number of times she had cause a rune to explode, a tool to melt, or hurt herself, and usually a neighbor, with a faulty rune chain, but no, the man disliked her because she was a Black. Many families thought poorly of her heritage but were too cautious to insult her's. Professor Watham was not part of those families, he was a an overly proud wizard born to a first-generation witch and wizard.

She had asked her father about him last year when Andromeda had gotten sick of his rudeness. It turned out that before he became a professor, he had wanted to be an enchanter. He didn't know anything about house politics and had been a little curt to Aunt Walburga during his apprenticeship. Being melodramatic as always, she had come home to scream about it and then had him blacklisted with every enchanter that the family had sway with. No one messes with a Black, even likely imagined insults. Even little Sirius was shaping up to be vindictive with his indirect retaliation. If their family wasn't main target, she might be proud of him.

Andromeda had missed Professor Watham's entire explanation of the review assignment he handed out by the time Pandora nudged her. "Are you alright, you started to drift away, like something ate your attention," she whispered.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Andromeda responded with a small smile, "I got lost in my thoughts a bit. What did I miss?"

"Just a review assignment and that we have to have a partner or group and project proposal by next Tuesday. He mentioned the school keeps records of the last five OWLs in the library if we need ideas for what to make."

"Oh? Sounds like Watham doesn't want to be bothered to teach to us. I bet he will use class time to work on his own projects instead of helping us out," Andromeda huffed. She truly believed that Nathan Watham didn't deserve to be a professor and that his job should have something involving very little interactions with other people.

"He does seem to only look up from his desk when there is an explosion or shout of pain," Pandora added, "But either way, do you have any in mind for a project?"

"Pandora, we established that I am absolutely pants at runes, the only thing I can imagine I could accomplishing is a compass," she grumbled as she started scratching random ideas on to a spare parchment. She started drafting all the magical items she was familiar with, unfortunately, a vast majority of them were incredibly complicated and fairly malicious in purpose.

Pandora started humming as she jotted down some ideas. She would cast an occasional glance over to Andromeda's growing list of cursed items with the odd commonplace item mixed in, like self inking quills and Bludgers. She frowned when she felt the urge to underline the Quidditch ball, she didn't even like Quidditch that much, but the way that destructive iron ball could target and attack on its own was interesting. Her frown deepened when her list stopped.

Andromeda had never had an open ended assignment like this before. This is probably why Bellatrix told her that the class got really hard for the OWLs. Her sister had done well enough to continue with the class, but it made her think about how many others would drop the class as soon as they were able to. She couldn't really wrap her head around where to begin. With a sigh, she turned to her humming partner, "Pandora?"

"Hmm?" she hummed, looking up from her list with her tongue barely poking out in concentration.

"I don't really have an idea of where to start. I've made a list of magical items that I'm somewhat familiar with but that is it."

"That is a great first step, maybe if you look over my ideas while I explain a few things about research driven projects. I've helped out my father enough to have an understanding of the basics," Pandora said as she pushed her parchment towards her and reached for Andromeda's. She waited for her to agree before taking the list and mumbling as she read it over, "Hmm, tripping troll leg… punji pit Persian rug… huh, invisible knife… Piscis Black's Feud Pendant.. ooh, Lyra's Lyre, I like the name… just about every damn snake in the house?"

Andromeda was growing more and more embarrassed as her list was read. She was only just able to ignore the way the Ravenclaw verbalized the many murderous items as if trying to decide which flavor of ice cream to choose. Pandora's ideas were spread out on the page. Each desired magical effect was circled with lines draw to different aspects that would have to be considered but there were four repeating focuses: what object would be best to inscribe, the advantages and disadvantages of each rune language she knew, existing items that might be similar enough to study to help, and what cast spells might have similar effects. Pandora's ideas were so much more comprehensive than her's. She especially liked her idea to make a compass that leads you to where you want to go.

It was when Pandora read the last item on her list that Andromeda's control was overwhelmed. She flopped onto the table a groaned, "Unngh, Blacks have been crazy about snakes, and murder, and some are just crazy. They have been since before Hogwarts. I'm sorry!"

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to."

"Andromeda, are you crazy about murder?"

"No!"

"Crazy about snakes?"

"More like tired of them, our common room over does them with the decor as well," she looked at Pandora and sighed with her response.

"I did always wonder about the Slytherin dormitory," Pandora commented with a smirk before her final postulation, "And most important, are you crazy?"

"Probably a little, but it would be dull otherwise."

The two nodded solemnly in agreement before breaking out into a fit of stifled laughter, much to the chagrin of the rest of the class. Professor Watham hissed at them, "Quiet! Do not disturb me, us, the class!" His bumble to cover his self-centered response sent them over the top. The two girls began openly laughing. The professor nearly growled at them. Andromeda managed to cast **Silencio** on them both as he started to rant, "That's two points from both Ravenclaw and Slytherin! And another three from Slytherin for using your wand without permission! Pureblood arrogance is what that is. Do you think you are above my rules because of who my parents are?"

His rhetorical question was ignored by the now under control girls, but the professor didn't notice. The man continued his rant heedless of the numerous eye rolls. The pair dismissed the spell and returned to their conversion, and project. "As I was saying before we were interrupted," Pandora picked back up with a glance to the front of the classroom, "If you aren't any of those things, I don't see how what your family does matters."

A small smile found its way into her lips. Andromeda spoke softly and took her friend's hand, "Thank you. Thank you so much for just seeing me instead of the House of Black." Pandora's response was a similar smile and a comfortable moment of silence. The two finally shook themselves to put away the serious discussion and return to working on their project.

Andromeda had managed to explain what some of her family's questionable objects. An umbrella stand that trips anyone who walks past it while wearing a disguise. The invisible knife had been made for an assassination, the pain and damage it causes doesn't appear until thirteen hours later, hopefully when the victim is asleep. A self-playing instrument that can be commanded to subtly target and destroy the organs of a person who hears it play. A necklace that strangles you. A necklace that slowly consumes the life and happiness of the wearer. A necklace that locates all those related to the drop of blood you add to it, perfect for eradicating entire families, even leading you to graves and frequented areas such as homes.

By the time she finished talking about how every snake in her home, statue or image, can be activated to defend and protect any Black, students were picking up and returning to their dormitories. Pandora wanted details on the snake enchantment, so they continued to the library. When the pair sat down at an empty table, they had decided on their project and spent until a few minutes before dinner working with a purpose. Spells were spoken about, similar items were identified, intended directions decided, and previous OWL submissions chosen for study. Both Andromeda and Pandora worked with such a purpose that one of the assistant librarians had to tell them that supper was served in ten minutes.

Andromeda had also done her best to explain what happened whenever things went wrong in the class, "It usually happens with the first rune of the day I etch. If that one goes well, I can normally get through the work without incident, but there are occasions when my notes and quill ignite on their own."

"There have been a few times that your runes are volatile when activated," Andromeda was embarrassed when Pandora added to her list of incidents.

"I didn't count them because I thought I just made the runes wrong."

"According to Professor Watham, incorrectly drawn runes either fail to activate or have weak results. He said that errors decrease the efficiency of runes, making the results too costly and that it takes contradicting runes to be chained together to have the reactions you managed to get."

"But I remember the first time I etched a rune, Ehwaz or Eihwaz, can't remember which, but I my scribing pen melted and burned my hand part way through it."

"That certainly doesn't sound like anything the professor had told us about. I'll have to keep a close eye on you to try to understand what's going with your rune work," Pandora replied. She paused for a moment when a smile crossed her face. It was not her normal small curving of her lips, it was a wide grin with a thoughtful look. "Maybe I should talk to a Quidditch player about borrowing some protective equipment?"

Pandora laughed and walked away to join the rest of Ravenclaw for supper as Andromeda gaped. It was amazing how quickly they had become friends but that didn't stop her from quietly vowing to get petty revenge on the blonde. Maybe swapping her quill with one of those new sugar ones. While the meal had yet to start, nearly all students were already there still catching up each other after summer. Kelly stood up and called for her, "Andi! Over here. We're saving seats for Dia and Harek as well."

A quarter of an hour into dinner, Harek and Perdita walked into the hall behind a few other late arrivals. Both were easy to spot because they had yet to get school robes. Lucy was going to call them over when they stopped just inside the door, obviously having some sort of involved discussion, judging by the two seem ignore everything except each other. A Hufflepuff was unnoticed when he was forced to duck under Perdita's sweeping hand gesture, the boy politely ignored her carelessness when Harek addresses him quickly and returned to the conversation. The girl then nodded furiously with a wide smile before turning pale and quickly red as Harek laughed loud enough to be heard over the clamor.

Andromeda decided to quietly lead them over to the table instead of calling them out. She didn't want to interrupt or embarrass them by putting more attention on them. She informed her friends, "I'll be right back, just going to grab those two," and nodded her head in the direction of still talking couple.

Lucy and Kelly almost harmonized their response. "Mhm," they hummed together and returned to eating.

The two were gone from the entrance by the time she got around a sudden influx of Ravenclaws and Slytherins. They must have moved when she had to stand aside and wait for a dozen students to pass. She didn't even get a chance to look around before a disgruntled shout drew her attention to the Gryffindor table, "Wait a tick! What're you two doing here?" The voice belonged a sixth year who she distinctly remembered her sister complaining about and it sounded more filled with surprise than anything else.

By the time Andromeda arrived next to them Professor McGonagall was already addressing them, "Miss Barnes, Mister Jameson, you are sitting at the Gryffindor table." The professor had spoken with the tone she used for point deductions. The Transfiguration professor noticed the transfer students lacked any sort of awareness of wrongdoing. Andromeda couldn't help but snort at how disarming their blank stare was. The professor deflated with a sigh, "It appears our headmaster and your head of house were so caught up in the excitement of your transfer that they forgot to make you aware of the student and house handbooks."

Perdita and Harek both realized where they were sitting. With comically wide eyes, the two glanced between each other, Professor McGonagall, various Gryffindors, and herself. Taking this as her cue, Andromeda pulled Perdita to her feet with Harek quickly following and attempted to excuse themselves, "I am sorry, professor. I will make sure both are read before the end of the week."

"See that it is, Miss Black."


	9. One Man's Trash

**Author's Note: Sorry about the late night post. I would have had it up on Saturday, but I haven't had access to a computer since Friday. When I originally wrote this chapter, it was close to eight thousand words, so I decided to edit it so there was a better end to it. The results is that the next chapter is mostly written so I may get it out earlier than two weeks. As always, I hope you enjoy.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 9 - One Man's_ _Trash_

"Today was almost as bad as the OWLs," Harry complained as threw himself onto his bed. Hermione smiled and sat on the edge of the vacant bed across from him. It took a moment of groaning but Harry rolled over and sat on the edge of his bed facing his best friend, "These names of ours are difficult to get used to." He held his head in his hands with his elbows on his knees. Harry let out a grunting sigh and furiously rubbed his face before sweeping his fingers through his hair.

"I don't like it much either, but we have to be safe. We can't just have Hermione Granger and Harry Potter attend Hogwarts some twenty years too early," she replied. She could see the stress building up in Harry's shoulders. Hermione moved and sat next to him and gave him her most comforting smile.

"Couldn't you have at least used your real name?"

"I almost did, but when my parents found out that I had magic, they did quite a bit of genealogical research," Harry looked her with confusion for a second, so she continued to explain, "By the start of my third year, my parents had created a complete family tree going back to the twelfth century. They had discovered every Granger and how they are related to me in the last three centuries, so another Hermione Granger couldn't just pop into existence without changing things."

Harry started to chuckle, "Sounds like you take after your parents, but couldn't you at least keep Hermione?"

She flushed bit and mumbled, "They were that thorough because I begged them to be."

"Sorry, what was that?"

Hermione closed her eyes and spoke with determination, "I said that my parents were only that thorough because I had begged them to be. I needed to know if my magic came from somewhere, for there to be a reason besides lucky genetics and Professor McGonagall's 'magic is a gift, one that should not be questioned less it be taken away.' I thought if I could explain it with research and science it wouldn't be as scary."

She needed a moment to collect herself. Talking about it brought up all of her original fears. Harry noticed that and pulled her into a comforting one armed hug. Her fears quickly abated. She felt herself leaning further into him. She was trying to pluck up the courage to turn the interaction into a romantic one. His hand. She would hold his hand and look into his eyes. Could she kiss him? Her determination faltered when she felt her cheeks burn. It then crashed when Harry spoke, "Hey, I'm here with you, mysteries of magic, time, and science won't run me off. You're my best friend. Nothing is going to change that." She had no clue how those words could be so comforting and devastating at the the same time.

"Plus, you haven't told me why you picked your name, we both know that I just froze up, but couldn't you have only changed your last name?"

"It was a nom de plume I came up with when I was eight," before Harry could make a comment, she steamed ahead with a somewhat defensive tone, "I couldn't just very well let you be the only one with a silly name!" There was a beat where she thought that she might have upset him but then he started laughing. Hermione couldn't help but join in. The laughter faded into a comfortable silence.

"Thanks Hermione. With you here, I think we'll manage," he whispered, finally starting to relax. "Though I am half expecting, half hoping George and Fred to bust down the door laughing about how this is an elaborate…" Harry's face paled and his eyes went wide with realization.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Hermione asked. Panic was starting to rise in the back of her throat. She didn't even notice that she had latched onto his hands and was rubbing soothing circles with her thumbs.

"The Marauders," was all he managed to say before staring at the wall numbly.

He had said enough.

After a sitting in silence, he finally spoke with a weak voice, "I realized I might meet my parents."

"Oh, Harry," she whispered. The face he had was so fragile. It made her want to hug him as tightly as she could and never let go, but she felt like that might break him. She instead gently wrapped one arm around him and continued her ministrations. She fumbled over her words, trying to comfort him, "You're not alone, my parents are out there. I know that it's not quite the same. I have very little chance of running into them and I'm terrified of what would happen if I do."

He broke away from his staring contest with the corner of the room and turned towards her. He looked ashamed. A warm arm found its way around her and pulled her a little closer while he gave her a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'm scared of that too, but that wasn't it."

Questions started burning in the back of her mind and Hermione had to snuff them out. Her parents used to tell her that she couldn't always ask questions and sometimes would need to only listen. She had always taken it that her parents were referring to rules, but with the way this past year had shown her how moronic rules and their makers could be, she realized that wasn't what they had meant. Right now, with Harry so ashamed, so vulnerable, just like he did with his hand after his detentions with the pink toad, questions would only hurt him.

Harry took a deep breath only to let it out with a sigh. His hesitation to speak was starting to scare her. "I when I realized I might meet the Marauders, I was excited to see Sirius and the rest of his friends from his stories." Tears started well up in his eyes. Hermione couldn't understand why such a happy sounding statement hurt Harry so much.

"Sirius and his friends, Hermione. Not my parents, his friends," he emphasized. Her breath hitched as tears started rolling down his face. His body stiffened and started to clutch at her for support. She never knew Harry to be bothered when someone mentioned his parents, but he never mentioned them himself, he never even mentioned the rest of his family beyond the fact that they exist.

It was all starting to make sense. He had confided in her that Sirius had asked him to move in with him in the hospital after Pettigrew escaped. That it was the first time he was looking forward to summer and being away from Hogwarts. Or when he said that he wasn't really going home when they boarded the train after their first year together. He even called his aunt and uncle the Dursleys. He never had family before and now they were here, living through a colossal 'what if?'

Tears fell from her own eyes. She wasn't sure if they were from her own confusion, fear, and sadness or the deep empathy she felt for Harry. She smothered the self-loathing that sprouted for not seeing it sooner. Not when Harry needed her. Not when she needed him.

They collapsed and clung to each other. She was blind with tears and mute with sobs. She could barely think. Beyond all the grief, she could barely tell that Harry was wracked right along with her. Time disappeared to leave only the pain. Nothing but endless loss. Loss and nothing else.

* * *

Hermione felt stiff as she woke up. When had she fallen asleep? Before she could even try to remember what had happened, she registered that she was cuddling something. She hadn't slept with Mister Montague since she was twelve. It couldn't have been him anyway because her stuffed elephant was back home on her bookshelf, nestled between her favorites as if he was watching over them. Plus, whatever she was cuddling was significantly more comfortable. And larger.

She stiffened and her eyes shot open. Yes, she was currently spooning Harry Potter. His hair was tickling her nose every time she exhaled and calmed her down every time she inhaled.

After Hermione's initial panic had settled and her rational mind started up again, she concluded that they had exhausted themselves and hadn't separate before sleep set in. Had her emotional breakdown not preceded this moment she would have be ecstatic, but instead she felt achy, her face was taught with dried tears and probably some embarrassing mucus, and her eyes and throat were sore.

With her grogginess from their impromptu nap dissipating quickly, Hermione focused her attention on her coincidental bedmate. Harry was still asleep, unless he had a change in personality and had become a rather clingy individual. His head rested on her left arm with his right hand interlaced with her left. Her right arm was pulled across his chest and pinned in place by his left arm, having curled its way around hers to again lace fingers together. His legs clamped possessively around her right one. She was pressed close to Harry, wrapped around him, and effectively trapped by him, but she couldn't bring herself to try to break free.

She did, however, test how tightly he was holding her with a small wiggle. The hold was loose enough that Hermione thought there was a chance she could extradite herself without him noticing. She contemplated doing so until Harry stirred and tightened his full body grip on her, even nuzzling his head further into her. Hermione took a breathe in surprise and hoped he didn't wake up with a start. Her nose was filled with his scent. It reminded her of a summer wind but there was a tension to it, as if there was something waiting for a chance to strike. Hermione dug through her memories to put a proper name to it. It was a calm night breeze moments before a summer storm.

Happy with her private thoughts, she decided to wake Harry with gentle rhythmic squeezes. It was all she could think of that might avoid hi waking surprise. Hopefully, if he takes things well, she'll get a chance to wake up like this again.

"Hrr-mia? Zzat you?" Harry mumbled as he turned his head to look around.

"Yes, Harry, it's me," Hermione softly responded, "We must dozed off at some point." He nodded his head in response. He hadn't yet realized how close they were. She had to pinch her lips together when his hair started tickling at her again. "Harry?" she asked, noticing he stilled. No response. "Harry. Hey, don't go back to sleep. We have to get up now."

He woke quickly this time. "Hmm? Sorry, Hermione. I'm just a bit exhausted," he said.

His whole body stretched out for a moment, pulling her about a bit as Harry had yet to let go. He paused at the apex of his stretch and wriggled his cute rear against her. His head quirked to the side a bit and Hermione knew exactly what face Harry was making. His furrowed eyebrows, pursed lips, and squinted eyes look of deep focus. She starting counting the seconds it took for him to realize what was going on.

Six seconds. It took him six seconds before he tried to crane his head about to look at her. "Hermione, is that you?" he asked with a small voice, one with a touch a fear and excitement that she was sure she imagined.

"Yes, Harry, it's me," she replied. Hermione was amused at how it was turning into a repeat of just a few seconds ago.

"Oh, okay."

Hermione wasn't sure what she thought of his reaction. She knew she shouldn't poke at any of his emotions with questions. Hermione wasn't sure if either of them could handle that right now. So instead, she resumed her original purpose, "Any plans of getting up?"

"Depends on if I'm hungrier than I am comfortable."

"Oh, and are you?" she asked, smiling to herself.

"Not quite, but I suspect you'll want me to get up anyway."

"And what gave you that impression?" Hermione had meant that to come out as a bit of dry sarcasm, but sarcasm while whispering sounds very similar to sultry and she only noticed it after she spoke. While Harry fumbled to put a sentence together, Hermione tried to burrow her head in embarrassment and pull her arms into herself to hide. She only succeeded in pressing her burning face against his ear and hugging him tightly.

"Don't worry, Hermione, I'm not going anywhere."

She managed to weakly nod and mumble, "Thanks," as Harry carefully released his hold on her.

He turned himself around to face her and gave her a proper hug, "We're going to get through this together, just like always." They pulled apart and sat up. He kept an arm around her until she gave him a resolute nod.

Hermione pushed herself to her feet and set her determination to overcome this ordeal. Then she turned towards the door and saw their reflections in the mirror, "Gah, we look worse than when we first arrived." Their clothes were completely wrinkled. Her entire face was red and puffy while it was just Harry's eyes. His glasses were bent and skewed. Her shirt and pants were bunched and half rolled up. Luckily, Hermione only had an irritatedly red nose and no dried mucus. Unfortunately, Harry's had done its best impression of a fountain and his collar was stuck to his neck.

And then there was their hair. A good third of hers was pinned to the left side of her head with the rest being inadequately described as frizzy. It was going to require an impressive number of detangling charms to get it to even come close to manageable. Harry's usual messy hair had gone from windswept to hurricane survivor. A hurricane survivor from a world where combs hadn't been invented.

Harry grunted an acknowledgement as he peeled his shirt away from his skin and grimaced at the amount of mucus it had collected. "First things first, I need a shower. Then we figure out a plan." He began looking around for toiletries that he had forgotten he didn't have. "Hermione? Do you remember the names of the house-elf and her friend?"

She paused her mental practice of a face cleansing charm Lucy had shown her last night to recall the names. It had been such a whirlwind of big events that the names were escaping her. "Mar, no, Macy?"

The second Hermione hesitantly said the name, Macy, still in a dress made of handkerchiefs sporting every house colour, appeared next to her expectantly. Before the elf could address either of them, Harry snapped his fingers as he remembered the name, "Jules! Her name was Jules."

Another quick pop had a second elf in the room wearing the same type of dress as Macy. The two grinned at each other and spoke together, "What can we's do for Mister Harek and Miss Perdita?"

Harry was the one to answer them, "We were going to clean ourselves up, but we realized that neither of us have, well, anything. Is there a way for you to get us some towels and bath supplies?"

The two elves wilted for some reason. Jules began nervously tugging on her ear and Macy froze. Hermione knelt down in concern, "What's wrong?"

Jules answered her as she took her other ear and started wringing it, "We's sorry! We's get to be's personal elves and we's can't even do yours first request!" Macy began nodding her head with tears starting to collect in her eyes.

"Sorry, we didn't mean to upset you," Hermione said, starting to become bewildered.

"Mister and miss are's sorry for ordering us? You's don't wants us?" Macy murmured, obviously becoming more upset.

Hermione was becoming flustered when Harry laid a hand on her shoulder and took over, "Why don't you tell us why you can't get us towels and such?"

This time, Jules answered, "Hogwarts elves are's only allows to touch students things to do laundry. We's not even allowed to put things away to help clean, we have to cleans around it alls. Ands, ands, if a students leave something behind, we's only allowed to put them away in the Rooms of Losts Things." Both elves had collected themselves by the time the explanation was finished.

"A lost and found, huh?" Harry asked, mostly to himself, "I bet it's full of stuff. I kind of want to see that."

Jules must have thought Harry was talking to her because she answered, "It is, Mister Harek." The little elf then snapped her fingers, causing her and Harry to disappear before he flickered back alone. He recoiled as if struck and dropped to his knees with a sickening crack.

"Harry!" Hermione yelled in surprise, rushing to his side. He groaned and fell to his hands. Her mind blanked when he began to retch. He finished his heaving while Hermione softly rubbed and patted his back. He wiped the remains of the few dribbles of bile he expelled with his sleeve and laid down on the cool floor with his arms and legs spread wide.

Hermione collected herself enough to ask, "Are you alright? What happened? Where did you go? Where is Jules? In fact, where did Macy go? And when?"

Harry, with his eyes stiff closed, reached out a hand to help calm her down. Hermione almost didn't stop rambling when he spoke, "I think I'll be alright, might have some bruises on my knees, a splitting headache, and no desire to use magical transportation for a while, but I'll live."

"Harry…" she trailed off, it was all she needed to say to let him know how worried she was.

"Maybe we should ask Jules and Macy what happened, maybe they -" he was cut off when the elves appeared in the room. Macy was glaring at a distraught Jules, who was doing her very best to tie her ears in a knot.

The Jules wailed and hesitated between helping Harry and hiding behind Macy in shame, finally approaching him. Jules, between sobs and sniffs, managed to speak, "Jules is sorries! Jules never worked in the castle! Only school-elves and foods is allowed to pops! Jules is sorries! So sorries and is bad elf!"

The little elf was so upset she was unable to speak further. She began started ripping handkerchiefs off of her dress, using each once before casting it aside for another. Macy gave Jules one last glare which caused her to pull her ears and stumble to a corner to hide. She then turned towards Harry, "Would Mister Harek like Macy to brings Mistser Harek to the sick room for the healers?"

"No!" yelped both Harry and Hermione, causing Macy to wince. Harry, now sitting up, attempted elaborate before they had two crying house-elves on their hands, "We mean no thank you. I don't think I could, uh, stomach that again. Plus, wouldn't I just get smacked back here?"

Macy was placated enough to sniff back her burgeoning tears, "Hurts peoples is allowed to's be popped to sick room." Jules, who had been trying to calm down, cried anew when hearing this, causing Hermione to wince.

"Right, I don't particularly want to get questioned by Madam Pomfrey and get anyone in trouble," Harry verbally pondered. A cute thoughtful expression later, he asked a question that was more directed at her than the elves, "Could Macy and Jules show us the way to the room of lost things? Maybe we can look around before dinner?"

Both elves perked up at the chance to help them and nodded an eager confirmation. Hermione wondered whether or not they would be able to use anything from the lost and found. How could they live in the past without changing anything? She finally acquiesced to Harry's idea, "Fine. We can take a look, but don't touch anything that has a name on it, I don't want someone to come looking for it. Plus, I want to get cleaned up before we leave."

"Miss Perdita needs not worries," Macy replied, snapping her fingers. They both cringed for a moment before noticing that they had been cleaned up by her magic. It wasn't as good as a shower and some specialized charms, people might think they had a very long day instead of what actually happened. After Hermione finished her assessment, Macy continued speaking, "Losts things ins the Rooms of Losts Things are losts because theys haves nowhere to's return to. School-elves bring back misplaced things."

"That's good," she said, "Can you lead us there?"

The elves happily rushed forward before having to stop and wait for her and Harry, he was lethargic but felt better after they left the dungeons. They were lead through several passageways that both knew were not on the Marauders' Map, including a staircase on the first floor that they were told lead to different places depending on how they walked up it. Hermione did her best to compile a mental map but realized she hadn't done it right when they stopped in front of a familiar pair of dancing trolls.

"We's heres. Nows you's just need to ask Hogwarts to help find what is losts," Macy informed them.

"Of course the Room of Lost Things is the Room of Requirement," Hermione said with a sigh. She really should have figured that out on her own.

"The room is very's helpful, Mistress Huffly-Puff made sure, just like Master Snakes's very's cunning dungeon, Mistress Corvus's clever tests room, ands Master Griffongate's starry inspire ceiling." Jules added as she followed close behind Harry while he paced and muttered in order to summon the door. "If you's wants, Jules and Macy can brings any not losts things back to yours rooms. All you's needs to's do is claims them."

"Thank you, Jules. Thank you, Macy." Harry had addressed them directly, causing both of them to squeak with glee. He then opened the door and paused at the sight of the cavernous room. Hermione noticed the credit of the hinges echo in the room. Harry stepped inside and she followed. Room was an inadequate description. Hermione paused to consult her mental thesaurus. Maybe antre. She decided this was a delve after barely realizing that Harry had spoken again, "Can you two make sure we don't miss dinner? I think it will be easy to lose track of time in here."

The two elves agreed and disappeared while they discussed where they might want to start. "All we really need is two decent trunks. We could really use ones with extension charms," Hermione reasoned.

"We will definitely need more space than what two regular trunks can afford us," he agreed but then emended, "We'll have to take the time to identify all the magic involved with the trunks." He shuddered as he explained, "After all this shite, I vowed to never use a magical item I am not confident in, especially something from the magical version of a lost and found crossed with a landfill."

Hermione glanced over to see what Harry had be looking at and snorted. It was a fifteen meter tall pile of class chairs in various states, from splinters to freshly polished. It was right next to a slightly taller and significantly wider pile of of school desks in the same conditions. She added her own thoughts, "I wonder if there is a magical version of tetanus? Actually, I think we will need be wary of the mundane one with how tetanic everything looks."

"I'll be careful, Hermione, but I don't think we should risk having magic interact poorly a magical doodad; I never got a chance to play Jenga, but this will do," he joked as he cracked his neck and limbered up. She hated when he did that as it always made her shudder. She was fine with popping knuckles and backs, but she squeamish about people messing with what connected the brain to the rest of the body. It didn't matter that her parents reassured her that if Harry didn't use his hands, then there was no real risk of hurting himself. It was enough to barely placate her.

He wandered away from her and Hermione turned her attention to looking for luggage that was usable. After a few minutes of hoping to come across a pile if steamer trunks somewhere, she heard a small clatter a ways off. "No, no, shite! Shite! Buggering shite!" The clatter grew quickling into a cascading clamor that stilled much too fast.

Loud noises and cursing were never good. Loud noises and cursing that involved one Harry James Potter were downright scary. "Harry?" Hermione called out. It wasn't very loud so she tried again, "Harry, are you alright?" She had started moving with a hurried pace towards the noise.

"Yeah, Hermione, it's nothing to worry about," he responded after too long of a pause. Now she was truly worried. He spoke again, this time it was the tone he used for his rather poor attempts to distract her, "I just learned something rather interesting about the nature of magic."

She followed his voice, it sounded like he was still quite a few piles away. She was going to take his poorly baited distraction and turn it around on him. She was going to follow him back and ensure he either puts in his foot in his mouth or she kicks him for doing something stupid again.

Reckless, she corrected herself, not stupid. She still remembered the face he made when she had accidentally insulted him that first time. "And you just happened across this deep insight?"

"Well, you know how we had that philosophical talk about where vanished objects end up?"

"Yes?" she asked, adjusting her path to the left of the next pile, which looked like damaged frames for school portraits. She didn't particularly feel like focusing on the point-me spell; she needed to think up a proper admonishing comment for him.

"How there was the debate of whether the tthing being vanished either ends up somewhere, simply stops existing, or is converted to something else, such as magic? And how the main argument involves the difference between objects and creatures when they vanish?"

"Of course, Harry. It was rather fun to watch Ron and Neville's eyes' glaze over during lunch before we started demonstrating it on their food and cutlery," she smiled at the memory and his use of an intellectual distraction. He was getting much better. "I remember Fred and George saluting us later as they were proud to leave the school in good hands," she spoke with a smile. She did so quietly, hoping he would think she wasn't coming after him.

"Yeah," he said with a laugh, "I have discovered that objects vanished end up in this room, at objects vanished while at Hogwarts. Don't worry, I made sure it wasn't magical."

She rounded a pile of assorted broken goods and found Harry buried up to his waste, hanging mostly upside down part way up a pile. He had several broken quills stuck in his hair with one holding his glasses askew. "Oh, Harry," she huffed as she crossed her arms and shook her head. If it wasn't for the fact he was smiling and gave her a little wave, she would have been upset rather than bemused.

Before she could help, he wriggled himself out and easily spun right side up by pivoting on something he was holding onto below him. He started shoving things around with his foot while he talked, "I also learned something else and have some good news. First, I found a magical trunk, and second, I learned that Jenga shouldn't be played with something taller than you."

He practically rode the trunk he yanked free, stopping two meters from her. He looked very much like the cat that ate the canary, or something about a seeker and a snitch now that they were supposed to be magical raised.

"Alright," Harry said with a satisfied sigh, "One magic trunk down and one to go. We might even have enough to check and see if there is something going on with the room on the third floor before supper. Ted had mentioned something about a fairly interesting proximity based charm on the door that hid Fluffy during breakfast this morning."


	10. Space Expansion, the Final Frontier

**Author's Note: Sorry about the delay in my posting; Sometimes the holidays sneak up and cudgel you with a candy cane. Poor explanation aside, I will be doing my best to get chapter 11 out next week. Also, I am starting to introduce a more sexual content, while there won't be any full frontal sex scenes yet, I hope for there a few sensual moments in the next few chapters, but it is relegated to being a bit of a joke in this chapter. I hope everyone enjoys the new year.**

 _Displacement_

 _Chapter 10 - Space Expansion, the Final Frontier_

Hermione sighed when she sat down next to Harry. He had a thoughtful expression on his face while he he stared at the six trunks they had extracted from the piles and piles of nothing but more piles of broken rubbish. A quick flick of her wand revealed that it had taken them most of an hour to locate four magical trunks and two undamaged mundane ones. Harry had managed to find two magical trunks, one was too damaged to use, but they agreed that it was worth investigating. She had found two mundane trunks that were too nice to leave behind and the fourth enchanted trunk. They had brought them back to the small clearing between the piles near the entrance at the same time.

Harry broke his almost unseeing stare and updated Hermione, "The best I can tell, the two mundane ones have weak reinforcement charms. The way the magic is barely holding on, I'd bet the owners had done it themselves at some point quite some time ago."

Hermione nodded as he got up and moved the nearly mundane trunks off to the side. He pulled separate two more, speaking as he did, "These two don't feel like they have anything that could give us trouble, unless they have some masking spells worked in somewhere, but those two…" he trailed off and shook his head. "Sorry, these two trunks have some bad mojo going on."

She hummed a response. Harry had tried to explain how his sense of magic worked his third year when he had first noticed it during the dementor incident. His glasses had frosted over but he could still tell where the snitch was. Unfortunately, Harry isn't the most eloquent speaker so she had to do some blind research to understand it. He explained that it was like a magical version of gut feelings and his sense of balance mixed together. He had been able to clarify that it wasn't really his sense of balance but he couldn't explain it any better. The best she could tell was that it was the equivalence of kinesthetic intelligence, Weirding, she titled it as she had discovered the closest thing to be Merlin and Morgana's mythical Mage Sight. After further thought, Hermione decided it probably encompassed divination, which would explain why she was so bad at it.

She was drawn back to present when Harry cleared his throat. His eyebrows were raised but it wasn't in surprise, more expectation. Great, he probably thought she had been working on some clever plan. It was almost enough to make her paranoid. Hermione had to work to keep her epiphany off her face while she responded, "Just thinking about how Professor Moody would proceed."

A grin crossed his face and he took a rigid stance. He then barked, "Assess for dangers, eliminate all risks immediately, and never let the enemy have a chance."

"Before we start sorting through their contents, we should figure out exactly what magic we are dealing with, I really don't want to be blown up by a pair of Tom Riddle's lost socks or something else some evil wizard in training left behind just because no knew where to find it; Hogwarts is over one thousand years old."

She cringed as she was forced to imagine a deadly encounter with Lord Voldemort's undergarments. Why would he own a pair of briefs and matching socks with the dark mark all over them? While Harry laughed at her, she stalked over to the pair reinforced trunks. " **Finite Incantatem!** " She had used vehement desire to destroy that disgusting thought from existence to fuel her focus while casting.

Hermione stumbled forward and fell after casting the spell. Somewhere off to the side she heard Harry yelp, but everything was hazy and spinning. She had never sunken so much into a single spell before, but she hadn't fallen because it had drained her. She was disoriented, it felt like her whole body was ringing like her ears would during a Quidditch match.

"Wha-what happened?" She managed to gasp out. Harry had rolled her onto her side and was patting her back.

"Don't try to stop yourself from throwing up if you feel like you might," he said while he hushed at her protests.

Nearly a minute after she gave up her protests and attempts to sit up, Harry spoke again, "You pushed all the magic out of the space around you and trunks. Since we're just about swimming in the magic of this room, you just hit yourself with a magical blastwave when it all rushed back in."

"Why do you know about them and I don't?" she asked weakly.

"I don't. Here are, up you go," he knew she wouldn't let it just lie when he failed to distract her by helping her up. He took a moment to collect himself with a sigh and a hair tussle, "I'm just piecing it together. I imagine it felt like a flashbang, one that went inside your head judging by the way you went down."

Hermione numbly looked about, "I'm glad that the real Alastor Moody never gave us grades." She noticed the poorly suppressed grin and silently thanked him for his doing his best to not comment. "I think we may want to take our time and not try that again."

Their Moody approved twice over everything and dispelling of the alarmingly harmful protections on the trunks, most of which were on the damaged one, had taken long enough to just run into supper. The elves had waited until they had finished dealing with a blood clotting curse triggered by damaging the chest with the intent to open it. It was the last bit of warding for them to remove before dealing with all of their contents. There was hardly a point to stop, so they cast **eritsistire** , the Misplacement curse, on each trunk that would last three hours, hoping to be back just after the spell expires, and left for supper.

The two discussed how they were going to move forward on their way to supper. "I think we should try to make our own map of the castle," Harry said, causing Hermione to quirk an eyebrow, her way of of silently asking for an explanation. "With us here, we have to be even more careful and I really don't want to happen across anyone from our future and mess things up."

"It will make things much easier for when we sneak out to our, well, internship," she added as she nodded in agreement.

He smiled at that and dug his fingers through his hair, "Honestly, I never thought I'd be one of those students who had an internship before university. It makes me feel like I know exactly what I want to be when I grow up, which is strange with all the crazy that shoves its way into our lives."

His words brought out one of her biggest smiles and a bit of heat to her cheeks. Our lives. He was thinking of a future with her in it. She was glad that his comment came just as they ducked into a poorly lit short cut to the Great Hall. "I know exactly what you mean. Last year, goodness that is still weird to think about," she paused, both enjoying the brevity of humor, "I realized how closed the wizarding world was to muggleborns, but now? Now, I have a shoe in the door for a job I don't have to settle for."

They began a back and forth of what they hoped their internship would involve and what essentials they would need, both for school and their new life. The entire time, Hermione kept thinking about how they didn't even know what they didn't know about the past in order to avoid changing it. An idea percolated and finally made its way out when they entered into the Great Hall, "Harry, how do we know what we cannot change here?"

Harry stopped and stepped close to her. He quickly cast their favorite privacy charm and turned to face her fully. "Hermione, we know that we can't try to change the past. Everything we know that happened, needs to happen. One wrong decision and one of us may be unborn," his face was set firm with determination. She knew he wanted more than anything to be able to change things.

"That's just it, Harry!" Hermione spoke with a raised voice, she was getting excited. "We can't change anything we know about!" The blank expression on his face made her pause and rethink her revelation. She gestured around her, "We don't know anything about what happened here," a boy ducked under her swinging arm and she continued with a slight pause, "Like that!"

"Like what?" Harry asked as he turned back from his apology to the Hufflepuff that Hermione had almost hit.

"We don't know everything about right now, we don't know anything about the events. Because we had no idea if that that particular student would walk past just now, my almost hitting him isn't meddling with time! It's living it!"

"You mean…"

"Yes! So, long we don't try change anything we know happened, we shouldn't have to worry about every single step we make changing everything!"

The rakish grin growing on his face face froze. "But what about all of your History of Magic knowledge, me being all but clueless about that class works in my favor, but I know you read ahead."

"That's just it! Professor Binns and the history OWLs are useless! They are so biased in favor of the Ministry that the most modern topic was 1808's ICW's standardization of wizarding money! There was not a single mention of Grindelwald or Lord Snakeface in the entire curriculum, even including the NEWTs! I could have skived off like you and still gotten an Outstanding!"

Hermione realized that she had started ranting and became still, waiting for Harry's response. She could feel the dread draining her face of colour. How would he respond to her idea? How she rationalized that they couldn't live their lives jumping at every shadow and hoping nothing changes.

"I think I understand, we can't worry about what we don't know will, err, has happened," he spoke carefully, a little unsure of his words, "but I can't get something you said out of my head and I have to ask." She was one second away from giving their time turner another spin and stopping herself from mentioning anything. She could jump herself while they were separated in the Room of Requirement, consequences be damned; if she was wrong and they were already messing around with time then a little more wouldn't matter. "Hermione, do you want to skive classes me?"

Hermione was not expecting that, the tizzy she was working herself into crumbled. Her brain needed to reboot. Harry threw his head back and laughed. "I'm sorry, Mia," he said, "I shouldn't have teased you like that."

Her face turned a very cute reddish hue before she recovered and slugged him in the shoulder, "That was mean! I was really starting to panic!"

Harry sheepishly nodded. He took down the privacy charm and waved his best friend towards their usual seats, "After you, Perdita." She gave him a suspicious glare but joined him at the dinner table without complaint.

Harry was happy to see that there was an untouched salad at the table for them to start with. The two ate in comfortable silence, quietly enjoying the sense of normalcy the boisterous mood of the table brought them. Harry leaned over and whispered in Hermione's ear when he finished his salad, "You know, I wasn't joking about us skiving off on classes."

Her head snapped to face him so quickly that she sloshed the drink she in the middle of setting down. She had the look of an impending tyraid, so he quickly finished his comment before he lost his nerve, "I'm suggesting that we focus on what we haven't learned yet and getting ourselves situated instead of being the best student possible." He could see the gears start turning behind her eyes as she bit at her lip.

"Wait a tick! What are you two doing here!" all but shouted the Gryffindor next to Hermione. He had a wet napkin in hand. Hermione's spill must have been larger than either realized.

Hermione, polite as always, responded, "I'm sorry about that. My friend," she shot Harry one of her admonishing looks, "surprised me. Thank you cleaning that up. I make sure it doesn't happen again, and I hope you didn't get too wet."

Her sincerity mollified the student for a moment, "It's quite alright, it didn't managed to get me." The student, a sixth or seventh year by Harry's guess, blinked and realized his response had been so automatic that he had derailed his own train of thought. "I meant, here, at this table."

The snarky comment about being colour blind never left Harry's mouth. He noticed Professor McGonagall on her way over to deal with the boy's outburst and he didn't feel like being reprimanded for rudeness. Rudeness was really the fastest way to earn a detention with her. Their Transfiguration professor's dry wit was a delight when it wasn't directed at him or his friends, "Miss Barnes, Mister Jameson, you are sitting at the Gryffindor table."

Harry stared at her, doing his best to recall what she was talking about. His confusion must have been quite obvious with his expression because Professor McGonagall gave a small defeated sigh. Harry was mentalling screaming curses. They must have sat at the Gryffindor out of sheer habit. He glanced at the people around him. A brief meeting of eyes with Hermione informed him that she was just as off kilter as he was. It was truly surreal to not belong at their house table. Old house, he corrected himself when he noticed an amused Andromeda Black standing just behind a still reeling Hermione. The lovely future Missus Tonks took pity of them and pulled his best friend to her feet. Harry quickly wiped his mouth with a napkin and left his plate. Andi, no Andromeda, or was Hermione being close to her was not enough and etiquette demanded he called her Miss Black, spoke for them, "I am sorry, professor. I will make sure both are read before the end of the week."

Harry was almost too frazzled by his queer new reality and scattered thoughts to hear Professor McGonagall's terse response, "See that it is, Miss Black." He nodded while the scope of their predicament clanged around in his skull, preventing him from noticing that he had been lead back to the Slytherin table while Andromeda explained something and had helped himself to another plate of food until Hermione gave him a hidden tap on the leg

His break from absent minded automation and glance to his right had him pour a splash down his shirt. His jerky reaction spilled more into his lap. Harry shook what was luckily just water off his hand after setting down the goblet. Hermione quickly spelled his mess clean, allowing him a breath to collect himself, "Thank you." She had noticed his thoughts had wandered away from the conversation, which was a bit rude of him. "I'm sorry, I missed that; I was lost in my thoughts," he apologized to Andromeda, Kelly, and Lucy and gave thankful nod to Hermione.

"Don't worry, it happens to the best of us, some much more than others," Lucy responded with a laugh and nudge in Kelly's side.

"Shut up," Kelly whined, adding her own elbow and then fingers to a growing poking contest.

The contest ended with a glare from an older prefect that Harry hadn't been introduced to yet. "As I was saying," Andromeda picked up again, "There are three times that Houses aren't allowed to mingle: Dinner, Quidditch games, and after curfew."

Lucy continued the explanation, acting the part of official prefect and attempting to ignore the continued pokes from Kelly, "Those times are labeled 'Moments of House Unity' by Professor Dumbledore, but it was done to prevent fights and other unseemly behavior. Mum said that it wasn't around when she went here and that was only twenty-five years ago." Lucy finally snapped near the end of her explanation and slapped Kelly's hand away.

"Most everything in the handbook are mundane rules and expected punishments for breaking them. The house book is made before graduation to help next year's new students settle in," Kelly added before settling into a pout and rubbing her swatted hand.

"Why haven't I heard of either of these books before?" questioned Hermione, thoroughly upset that such important information had been denied to her for the first five years of her magical schooling.

"Well, we did arrive rather abruptly and things are bound to be different than what we are used to," reasoned Harry reasoned, thinking that nearly three decades was plenty of time for school policies to change.

"I know but…" Hermione trailed off as she changed her mind and settled on an excuse, "Sorry. I get really anxious when it comes to any sort of testing."

"Speaking of," Andromeda started, "Do you have any idea how you two did?"

Harry replied as Hermione hid from focus by starting in on her replacement salad, "Most of the professors confided that they were confident that we would be fine after our practicals were over, but we'll be certain tomorrow morning. If all goes well, we'll have the day to collect school supplies. We may even have a chance to explore more than just Diagon Alley." He gave the girls a knowing smirk that surprised them, "I think we should hold off on any serious personal shopping until this weekend, otherwise it will be too rushed to enjoyed."

Hermione almost choked on an olive when she saw the way he was wagging his eyebrows. She slapped his shoulder and sputtered, "Harry! Don't you dare give them the wrong idea!"

He chuckled and returned to his food as Andromeda gave Hermione an inquisitive stare. "So," she began, tucking her hands under her chin, "Harry, is it?" He gave her a shrug and continued working on the lamb in front of him. She looked back to Hermione to tease her, "Well, well, Dia, using a pet name might send the type of message we don't want to get out, yet."

Hermione flushed at the inference but refused to respond. Teasing about supposed secret relationships and rumors of relationships were joked about while the five friends ate their meal. Harry stayed quiet, only answering questions and having polite dinner conversation with some of the nearby Slytherins. He enjoyed seeing Hermione relax and chat about things that were unrelated to homework or their mortally dangerous extracurriculars.

The relaxed mood continued as the group found their way back to their common room to do homework and gossip about the various teachers Harry and Hermione had to learn to deal with. After a lazy few hours of getting an idea of what to expect during their repeat year, Harry begged off earlier than Hermione to explore the new school, she soon followed after him, informing her friends, "Harek's sense of direction is bad enough for him to get lost going from one room to another, especially when there was any sort of magic involved.

The two left the chuckling study group in the dungeons and made their way back to the Room of Requirements, doing their very best to avoid running into any Gryffindors that would object to their presence on the seventh floor of the school. It took Hermione and Harry a bit over ten minutes to locate the steamer trunks, so she figured they had mistimed their return. Though the damaged trunk was being difficult, it seemed to be doing its best to wander away. She swore it would shuffle a few centimeters when neither were looking.

She heard him mutter, "We're going to end up like Moody," as she cast a minor sticking charm on the frankly now creepy trunk.

"What's that?"

"Might as well start with that one," he said a little too loudly. He very clearly hoped she hadn't understood his muttering.

"I suppose that would distract me from your mutterings," she replied lightly as she tapped the now imobile trunk with her foot. "I'd be careful, twenty-eight years is plenty of time for the name Harek Jameson to become synonymous with paranoia alongside with Alastor Moody's," she joked.

While he sputtered, she examined the trunk. Leather was damaged enough to reveal the frame beneath in more than one location. She resisted the urge to pick at the leather to see what the contents of an expanded trunk would look like from the outside. Hermione didn't want to run the risk of finding out what happens when an expansion charm fails while there were still things inside. Would it all fuse together to remain within the new limits of the container or would the contents burst out of it? How violent would the reaction be?

Harry was about two meters behind her when she opened the steamer. The lid almost felt tacky, as if it was trying to take her sticking charm and incorporate the spell into itself, similar to the Misplacement curse with it trying to wander off. Inside the chest was a fairly standard looking trunk space. It has what first looked like a yellowed wallpaper lining that turned out to be some unknown genus of wood stained nearly white with a grey-green floral pattern painted on.

There was nothing inside of the trunk except for a number of brass rings of various sizes over empty name plates on each side of the chest. It was like an old filing cabinet but Hermione couldn't make out any seams that suggested they might be used as drawers. She counted thirty rings total. Twenty-seven on the hinge side, three groupings of nine; the top left group was organized into a three by three square, the bottom middle group was three triangles pointing to the center of them, and the top right was an evenly spaced circle. The last three rings were larger enough to grip with her entire had and each were alone on the other three sides.

"Anything?" Harry asked as he edged up behind her.

"Nothing but handles and labels, most of the paper in them are too faded to read but the largest are labeled with Stairs, Potions, and Library. Maybe it's some sort of segmented expansion charm, but I don't quite see why one would be labeled Stairs." She hesitated for a moment and grasped the library handle to the left. Nothing happened. She gave it a small tug, not expecting the entire side of the trunk to slide to the right, revealing what appeared to be a very small bookcase filled with very small books. The space was neatly divided into six part, each with a label with the same brass card insert name plates as the handles: Transfiguration, Charms, Magical Creatures, Dark Arts, Potions, and Adventure. The last gave her pause, but she figured it was journals and other stories rather than academic material.

The very small books had very clear titles on their spines and were in alphabetical order within each section. A comprehensive scan revealed only expansion, linking, and organizing charms for the bookshelf and the books had the standard reinforcement and occasional animation spell. Once satisfied it was safe, she pulled the book "Application of Advanced Transfigurations Taught by Pussandra Lockhart" and it enlarged into a red leather bound with the title written in a flowery script just like their joke of a professor's handwriting on its own as it left the shelf.

"It appears not all Lockharts pretended to be teachers," she said as she turned around to show Harry the cover, "Though I am surprised Lockhart is an actual family name."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise when he saw the cover, "Really?"

Hermione had opened the book and nodded, "Really.". It started with a small biography of Pussandra Lockhart, a picture of a beautiful woman in a corseted witches' outfit with the same gleaming smile and fair hair as their Lockhart as well as a bibliography of her other works, most appeared to be lessons on Hogwarts core classes. "It states that she was born in 1667 and her first work was published in 1686, impressive for someone presumably only a year or two out of Hogwarts," she commented.

She stepped back to peruse the book while Harry further investigated the trunk. The sliding of the magical expansion drawers were noted as she ran her finger down the table of contents; the three chapters about human transfiguration caught her attention. Hermione updated Harry about the booked as she fingered through numbered corners of the book to jump to the section that interested her most, "She has a chapter entirely devoted to human to animal transfiguration, including animag - EWWWW!"

Hermione shrieked and threw the book away from herself and did her very best to scrub her mind of what she saw. The animated image played over and over behind her eyes: Pussandra Lockhart on a desk enjoying what could only be a large transfigured animal penis being thrust repeatedly into her. "Oh my God! That is vile! Get it out of my head!"

Harry had a moment to take a look at the book and laughed. "THAT IS DISGUSTING, NOT FUNNY!" His laughter ended abruptly when she spoke with a much smaller voice, "Please don't laugh at me."

"Sorry, Hermione, but I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at the fact that Flophart was actually upholding family tradition by pretending to be a teacher." He was wearing a crooked grin that forced a giggle out of her. He flipped back to the front of the offensive waste of parchment and pulled the trunk's library open again. He ran his finger across spines, reading titles and glancing back at the magical pornographic material. "Wow," he finally said as he set the book aside, "This trunk has all of her work. Actually, I think I think the library might be entirely porn."

"WHAT?" Hermione was aghast. Who in the world have a small library's worth of porn?

"Yeah, that circle of handles seem to have all the school supplies with the labels including Stationeries, Runes, Grades, and Shite Lessons, -"

She cut him off with another shout, "WHAT?"

He continued with only a pause at her interruption, "- so I don't think we will find much more than the minimum textbooks for Hogwarts starting from 1691 going by the essay dates I saw in Grades drawer, which still might be useful."

Hermione was definitely interested in the three-hundred year old lessons and possibility of there being actual books, but she was hesitant to search through something that belonged to such a deviant. She realized her concern was obvious with Harry's suggestion, "Why don't you look through the safer trunks while I clear this one out. I'll save anything that might be useful, but the wank material is going to be stacked a safe burning distance away from everything, along with any undergarments."

"Thank you," she said, "I don't think I could handle that. We'll make sure to work together on anything dangerous we find and then go through the last trunk together."

"Agreed. Wish me luck."

"Good luck, Harry, but I am very glad it isn't me," she called over her shoulder with an audible shudder.

"Now if only I could locate a pair of gloves so I didn't have to touch everything," he mused.

There was a pop and Macy was standing between the two of them pointing, "Lefts-behinds potions safeties are four piles thats ways on the lefts."

"Cool, thank you. Wish we thought of asking for help earlier."

A few minutes later, Harry returned and handed her a pair of slim dragonhide gloves, "Here, a little more protection for us both."

She gave him a small smile and took the gloves. They were very different than the bulky ones she used during Potions and Herbology, these looked more like something a rich person like Malfoy senior would wear. Hermione was surprised when putting them on, they perfectly fit her hands and did not detract from her dexterity at all. A tug of a glove's wrist to snug it down caused it to stretch part way down her forearm. Several experiments later taught her that the gloves could reach all the way up to just below her armpits, would stay were she left them, and that she could pick the colour of the magical gloves by pulling and twisting a finger or thumb, a bit like shuffling through a colour scale with texture and pattern options.

"I think I might keep you two," she whispered after settling on what she thought might be the gloves' natural colouring and began to dig into the first trunk that she had cast Finite and spoke with more subdued tone, "It appears our headmaster and your head of house were so caught up in the excitement of your transfer that they forgot to make you two aware of the student and house handbooks."


	11. The Morning After

**Author's Note: I am sorry about the delay. My computer had to be sent in for repairs and I've been working off of my phone for everything. I was going to wait until I had my computer back to post anything because I have never used the phone app for a post, but it is taking way to long so I decided to try it.** **This** **chapter is on the shorter side compaired to my last few posts.**

Displacement

 _Chapter 11 - The Morning After_

Andromeda found a tired looking Perdita and Harek waiting for her in common room when she trudged down the stairs to get breakfast alone. She had long since given up trying to get Lucy and Kelly to wake up early enough so there was enough time for them to have more than toast and tea before classes. "I don't remember you getting back last night, did you two end up getting lost?" she asked as her new friend did her best to stifle a yawn that triggered Harek to stifle one as well. "Wow," she joked, "Looks like you two learned about some of Hogwarts's traditions and located a few broom closets last night." Both of them strangely winced at her joke, so she probed further, "Did you two get caught in a compromising situation?"

Perdita covered her mouth and turned a bit green, forcing her to turn to Harek for an explanation. He gave it by suspiciously leaning close and whispering it to her, "We discovered a rather disturbing collection of pornography, bad enough for us to burn it." She shot a glance at Perdita who was doing her best to avoid thinking about it by examining the fireplace. "Please don't ask for specifics, the details might put one of us off breakfast."

"Well, that is disconcerting," Andromeda acknowledged. Perdita had started humming to herself as a distraction. "Fine, I won't pry any further than wanting to know where to find the stash so I can avoid anyone I notice snooping for it."

"Seventh floor, surprisingly close to the Gryffindor tower," Perdita managed, her attempts to ignore the topic had failed.

"I knew Gryffindorks were touted as being courageous, but I never thought it would be in that way."

"Please, don't," a significantly greener Perdita pleaded.

"Alright, I'm done. We can just wait quietly for Lucy and Kelly and miss most of breakfast or we head down now and have a nice long meal," she said as she raised her hands and plopped down onto a couch to watch them decide. The coloured leather creaked as she squirmed a bit to get comfortable. Too many of the central pieces of furniture in the common room were only there to add to the splendor of the Slytherin house and not designed for use. The green leather chairs and couches were much too hard and the tables near them were ornate cocktail tables that were too low to be easily used for homework, both had a hostile variation of the Impervious charm on them that relocated spills on to the nearest student's robes.

They finished their quick chat so she asked, "Going or waiting?"

"Going," Perdita replied.

"Right," Andromeda responded as she pushed herself up by her knees, "Best be off, slow starts lead to slow days and all that."

"Aren't we down two?" Harry asked through a yawn as he held the door for them and three other Slytherin girls that left with them.

"They'll find their own way, being girls who like bed more than breakfast." Perdita definitely rolled her eyes and sighed. He looked dead on feet. Andromeda couldn't fault him for missing the conversation.

"Ah," he grunted, glanced at the three third year Slytherins near them, and fell silent.

Harek certainly had a way with words. Somehow, he managed to kill the other trio's conversation with his awkward non-response as well. He definitely seemed to be uncomfortable being the only male with five women, well, two women and three girls.

He lengthened his gate to pull slightly ahead of the awkward silence and shoved his hands in his pockets. Leaving him alone, Andromeda and Perdita began to chat about what sort of things she would bring back from her shopping trip today. Dia wanted it to be a surprise. Further prying yielded a confession that Perdita didn't want to get her hopes up to then not find what she was looking for. She was part way through a rambling list of things she said she would pluck an eye out for, a saying that sounded like it belonged to her family and not muggles, when she trailed off with a dazed look.

Andromeda's concern was rescinded before she gave it because she noticed what the trio of girls started whispering and giggling. In Harek's attempt to avoid the focus of five females, he gained their attention, at least most of him did. He seemed to have forgotten that they were behind him and started humming and looking about as he strolled to breakfast, almost headless of anyone except to not bump into someone. Which eventually lead to him yawning and stretching without care as he inspected armor and paintings as he strolled towards the Great Hall.

The moment his shirt pulled up to reveal more than a glimpse of skin Perdita had gone quiet. The girls had started giggling when he shoved his hands back into his front pockets. Andromeda might have been distracted by the way his pants were stretched taut over his perfect Quidditch bum but she was more of an arm and chest girl, especially ones shaped by swimming all year round and doing whatever a summer gig constructing was. Ted's ease with the warming charm was what caught her attention in the first place and definitely not the fact that she had seen him wearing what she recently learned was called a speedy, no, speedo, she corrected.

Andromeda and Perdita composed themselves when several second years ran by babbling about finally getting to use spells after a boring summer. They must have been avid readers of WizKid Weekly as one nearly shouted, "Nuh-uh! July's Tipsy Tackle spell-chain is way better than August's Fizzbang Fumble!" She almost laughed at how it the three children looked just about ready to draw wands over it. Harek stepped in before that happened by meandering in front of them to only stop to tie his shoe. The sudden obstacle in their path reminded the four boys of where they were and they settled down without a word of admonishment being spoken. No wonder he is in Slytherin.

Professor Slughorn pulled Harek to the side just as they entered the Great Hall and Andromeda only noticed because she could feel him tense up when the man entered his personal space. "Good morning, though I am sorry this couldn't wait, but it was quite lucky you are early risers, otherwise you two would have had to skip breakfast to make it in time, wouldn't dream of missing a meal myself," he chuckled at his own joke before he continued listening to his own voice, "or even worse, having to wait until the end of the week! You have, tempus, goodness, only twenty seven minutes to eat what you can and be at the entry hall doors!"

The pudgy man tried to usher them with a jogging, only taking two steps, already turning red, and turned to explain away his embarrassment, "Well, it isn't proper to rush or get worried, just do keep an eye on the time. I would hate for you two to miss your ride."

Andromeda hadn't noticed that Harek had drawn his wand. She only noticed the last few inches retract back up his sleeve before Professor Slughorn finished speaking a single word. The exhale of a hitched breath to her right informed her that Perdita had either noticed the aggressive reaction or stopped one of her own. " A ride, professor?" Harek sought to clarify.

"Goodness, I seem to have gone and rushed ahead of myself!" he tilted back and grabbed his belly for three short chuckles. Andromeda had seen that man laugh in such a fake manner so often that she wasn't sure if it actually was acting anymore. "Another apology then," he said before promptly continuing without said apology, "It is your portkey to acquire your school supplies. I have your lists and schedules right here and you'll be glad to know that neither of you will require any accelerated courses for the OWLS."

After taking the her two pieces of parchment Perdita asked, "Who will be chaperoning our shopping trip?"

"Luckily, you two have already met her. Miss Wren had some personal business to take care of. She has a return portkey arranged for just before two in the afternoon, just in time for you two to be back for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and she has agreed to take you there and look after you two."

"Thank you, professor," Harek replied. Andromeda could hear tightness in his voice. He was restraining himself. The chubby man gave a small wave and left her and her friends to have their rushed breakfast. Harek and Perdita worked together to quickly make a breakfast of a fried egg on toast with tea. She let them eat silently. Harek took a moment to decide whether or not he wanted to take some fruit with him but realized he didn't have a pocket that could comfortable fit an apple.

The two were fast enough to have time to relax and enjoy a second cup, giving her to a chance to ask a question that she had forgotten to ask last night, "What electives did you two decide to take?"

Harek, mid-sip, let Dia answer, "Harry and I are both taking Ancient Runes, I'm also taking Arithmancy, and Harry is in Care of Magical Creatures."

Harek set down his cup and glanced at his class schedule. "Unfortunately, I'm not in the same Ancient Runes class as Perdita. I am surprised that Slytherins aren't all grouped together for classes."

"We are separated by house from first to third year, but once fourth year hits, everyone gets mixed together. Something about being old enough to learn to deal with people with different perspectives. I personally think it is because they stop holding your hand while learning the basics. I also expect class schedules would be a nightmare if they tried to keep the Houses segregated," She explained. "Do you mind if take a quick look at yours?"

"Be my guest," Harek replied as he checked the time. "Hrm-Dia," he said and waited for her to look up from her school supply list before continuing.

"Yes?"

"I'm going to run and grab something from the room, I'll meet you...wait, I can just ask Macy bring them." As he finished his sentence, there were two quick snaps of a house elf from underneath the table, "Thank you." He passed something small to Perdita which she pocketed without much concern.

The next few minutes passed quietly, as quiet as a a hall half full of groggy kids eating breakfast while complaining about school already could be. Harek and Dia checked the time and were forced to excuse themselves. "Thank you for the company during breakfast, Andromeda, it was a nice change from what we are used to," Harek paused and let Dia get a few steps away from the table before turning back to face her, "Seriously, thank you. You have no idea how much your friendship means to Perdita. Me as well."

His sudden candor surprised her and it showed despite her training to mask her emotions. He smiled when the surpise appeared on her face, even as briefly as it did. It was a gentle smile that showed her his sincerity. "Happy to be your friend, and please, call me Andi."

"And call me Harry. Perdita has never called me anything else except when I've upset her."

He turned to catch up with Dia but turned back around once more when Andromeda called him back, "Harry, I almost forgot to give you back you schedule and supply list, you'll need it for shopping. It looks like I'm going to be with you in Creatures and with Dia in Arithmancy."

"Looking forward to it." He reached across the table, took the parchment, folded it up tightly, and placed it in his back pocket. Harry said, "Well, I certainly am looking forward to getting some shopping done," and gave her a wink. He was out of sight when she realized that Dia had told him about all of their plans. If Dia was planning to bring her boyfriend, she could bring hers. Now she just needed Ted to agree to both, but she had some time. Not much, but enough.

She thought about the shopping trip and a few other things while waiting for Lucy and Kelly to arrive. It was going to be fun if all six of them were able to go, even more so if they didn't have a chaperone. She now had new questions that she wanted answered. How Harry managed to get a personal house elf inside the wards? It couldn't be a Hogwarts house elf because they were only allowed to act while remaining bound by their orders. A kitchen elf could only make food and move it between the Great Hall and the kitchen. What he mean when he said the room and not his or Perdita's room? Was it just a misspoken sentence or something else?

"Good morning Andi," Lucy and Kelly greeted together, shaking her free from her run away thoughts. They fell into the seats opposite her, previously occupied by Harry and Dia.

She smiled and welcomed them by pushing a teapot full of the only type of tea that made the mornings bearable, or so they have claimed. A quiet, "Thank you," came from Kelly while Lucy glanced about before asking, "Where are Harek and Dia?"

"They had to rush through breakfast in order to catch a portkey to Diagon Alley to shop."

Lucy pouted, "And she didn't think to tell us last night?" Kelly remained focused on her tea.

"Slughorn surprised us as we entered the hall. They are being escorted by Wren," Andromeda paused to think, "I'm not sure if Mister Cotton is going along as well, but I've never seen her without her beast."

Both Kelly and Lucy winced at the thought shopping with the caretaker's military demeanor hovering a few steps behind them. "They are due back in time for Defense, so we can ask about it then," Andromeda informed her two friends.

A quick nod off confirmation between the three of them before they set in on breakfast. The peace only lasted a few seconds as Kelly had finished her tea and her brain started working. "Speaking of Defense Against, how's it going with Theodore Tonks as a partner?" she had spoken casually but the conspiratorial wink Kelly did had her turning pink.

"M'fine," she mumbled back as she fought to rid the colour from her cheeks. Andromeda tried to distract herself by focusing on the class work they had done together, "He is brilliant at charms but absolutely horrible when it comes to creatures. The hypothetical Hippogriff had him in a tizzy."

"He probably was distracted by something else," Lucy mumbled into her cup of tea.

"What was that?" Andromeda asked, barely having heard her but refused to let herself blush.

"Nothing." Lucy blinked innocently and Kelly decided to speak up, "He is top of the class in Charms and does well in Transfiguration, so we were wondering if he wand work is a good as we thought."

That cemented it. She hated her friends. Always teasing her about her crush. No matter how red she was, Andromeda was not going to take this lying down. "His spell work is as good as your potion work is bad. I remember you two having having to lock yourselves in empty classrooms to practice. You two were always bumping about and shouting about stirring the cauldron. I remember having to direct a few people away in order to stop anyone from finding you two making a mess."

Petty revenge felt good. There was no real risk of being overheard and a rumor starting because the two actually did struggle to maintain an Acceptable in the class. Plus, such a straight laced answer makes their innuendo seem accidental. She let out a groan as thinking about rumors sparked her memory from yesterday.

"What's up?" Lucy asked, ignoring the attempt to embarrass them.

"Nothing," she let out a small sigh, "I just realized that there is going to be a rumor about me being in a relationship with Pandora Peregrine or something like that."

"Oh, that," Lucy chuckled. Andromeda didn't know why she was being so cavalier about this. If the rumor made its way to the wrong ears, such as Bellatrix's, she would be in trouble. Even if it wasn't true. Actually, especially if it wasn't true. Blacks were supposed to always be in control and never let the public catch wind of what they were up to unless it benefited them. "Don't worry about it."

"What do you mean don't worry about it?"

"The boys in the class are too terrified to blab about it and most of the girls overheard what the two idiots had said and are on your side. Well, except for the Gryffindors, but I don't think they want to cross you."

"Especially since the Black family's unofficial maxim is 'Mess with us and lose something,' and with you threatening to use what is removed for potions, there is less of a chance of Madam Pomfrey being able to regrow or reattach it," Kelly added.

"Great," Andromeda sighed. She sunk down in her seat a little bit. "I think I prefer it when the rumor was going to be about Pandora and I being in a relationship," she grumbled.

She sullenly munched on a pear and kept to herself while Kelly and Lucy ate a small amount of scrambled eggs with their toast. It wasn't truly a disastrous situation for Andromeda, the rumour, however it was, just meant extra work. It would grant her notoriety, but it was just a matter of knowing with whom and whether or not it was positive. There would be times this soon to be rumour would work against her. She began imagining some scenarios revolving around what was important: friends, family, The Family, and hopefully Ted.

Andromeda only noticed how overwhelmed she was getting when she realized that she wasn't in the Great Hall anymore. While she was deep in thought, her body had followed her friends to a nearby bathroom to freshen up before class. She set aside her thoughts of things still outside her control and focus on locating her pocket sized bottle of mouth philter. Finding it in the third pocket she checked, Andromeda organized her mind for Care of Magical Creatures while she freshened her breath.

She spat in the sink and rinsed her mouth out. Andromeda then stared at her reflection, pinched her cheeks, and psyched herself up, "Alright, Andi, you can bridle this kelpie. No Black would let the first week of school overwhelm her. Nor romance, rumours, or her strange friends." She gave herself a nod and spun around and immediately left for class with a quick pace. She was determined to make sure the rest of the day went better than her breakfast.


	12. It's a Date

**Author's Note: I realize that it has been a while since I have posted anything. I finally replaced my computer but just didn't get back into the habit of using it, so I never posted what I had managed to piece together with my phone. I have taken the time to remake my notes for this story and I have the day to write and post things, so hopefully it will be enough for me to get back into a routine.**

 **I am hoping that I am able to post some other things today or at least make enough progress to post later in the week.**

 **I would like to say thank you to everyone that stuck around through my lack of writing.**

Chapter 12 - It's a Date

If there was a clock in the classroom, Ted would be staring at it, watching the seconds tick by. His father had gotten him an entirely mechanical watch for his second year which he had charmed the spring so he never needed to remember to wind it, but he wasn't about to dig it out there check the time while in class, especially potions class, even if he could barely wait to sit with Andromeda in Defense class.

Professor Slughorn was demonstrating different methods of monitoring and adjusting the brewing process, "Now I know all of you are aware of the dangers of an incorrectly brewed potion and how volatile they can be, but let me assure you, no matter how badly students have been hurt during the first four years of lessons, NEWT and professional potion making can be significantly more catastrophic." The jovial professor's had taken an unexpectedly serious edge.

"I do not say this to scare you, but rather to impress the importance that every safety measure is vital. Because this year is the last one required for potions learning, I would be remiss to not ensure my student's safety outside this carefully controlled environment, and to further support safety first, no student shall be graded poorly for not handing in a potion at the end of class brewing so long an analysis and correction of mistakes are submitted at the beginning of the following class."

Ted glanced around the class, there were a few students who looked hopeful at the chance to improve their grades even with poor potions performance, some just saw it as more work.

Professor Slughorn clapped his hands to bring attention back to him, "Now I know you all remember the rule of not casting spells in the potions laboratory and despite that you have seen me vanishing poorly made potions countless times. Allow me to explain. The spell I use is not a simple cleaning or vanishing charm, it is the result of one man's life long dedication to safety. Maximilian 'Mischief' Moritz, the creator of the spell, has saved countless lives despite not living long enough to see his work implemented. He had left his journal to the son of a friend before his death, in fact, besides this life saving spell, a large number of schoolyard jinxes used today have originated from the journal being published.

The Potion Removing charm, or Max's Mischief Vanisher as it was first known, is a complex spell that temporarily renders a potion inert before vanishing the liquid, allowing for the safe disposal of all but the most potent potions. To emphasize its importance, I will attempt a normal vanishing charm on this mixture of standard potion ingredients, but do not worry, it is significantly less potent than the most common potion and the results will be harmless, if a bit pungent."

He took several steps back from the cauldron and pointed his wand. A ploom of black smoke erupted from the brew and it began to bubble angrily. The first two rows of tables leaned back, fearing an explosion despite the man's words. Professor Slughorn traced a shape similar to a 'd' with an exaggerated upward flick at the end as he spoke, " **Unfrughe Rundastand**." The brew was gone and so was the smoke.

He turned his back to write out the description of the spell on the blackboard. "This spell requires requires the caster to use more magic than the target contains, as well as the focus and intent needed, making it unsafe to teach to younger students. An improperly performed Potion Removing charm can result in a worse reaction than a regular Vanishing charm. So for homework, I want everyone to take a set of these five potion vials and practice removing the potion," said as he gestured for students to come up to the front to receive them.

"Each is labeled with a number one through five, with five being the most difficult to handle. The vials have been charmed to be indestructible along with monitoring charms for safety. Every week, each student will hand in these vials at the beginning of class and receive a new set at the end for practicing the charm. Your goal is to hand in as many empty vials as you can manage. Tampering with the vials or any other cheating will result in an automatic failure and a detention for every attempt," the professor explained as the last of the students returned to their seats.

"This shall be your homework every week as well as any brewing analysis and essays I assign, but the vials will be all I assign today. Before I dismiss the class, I want to remind you that safety and potion analysis are the two main parts of both the written and practical portions of the Potions OWLs. You are free to go."

Professor Slughorn immediately followed his dismissal with a parting comment, speaking over the students' packing, "Those who have trouble managing the Potion Removing charm may find it helpful to read the story behind the spell's creation. There are several copies of the section of Maximilian's journal pertaining to this spell available in the library. Though it is unlikely to be on the OWLs or even the NEWTs, it is a vital part of potion history and is something I consider essential to anyone looking to become a potion master. It is an interesting read as well, especially if you consider that Maximilian Moritz never made a single potion in his entire life." He chuckled in his usual manner and waved the students on before cleaning up his demonstrations.

Ted made his way through the rest of his classes without anything particularly interesting happening; it had been more review and other summer cobweb removal. It wasn't that classes were boring but rather that he couldn't focus on them. It wasn't until Professor McGonagall loomed over him with a disapproving eye that Ted realized how foolish he was acting.

"Mister Tonks, now that the class has your attention, would you care to elaborate on the limitations of freeform transfiguration compared to structured spell transfiguration?" she questioned. Her pause only lasted long enough to confirm his confusion before returning to the front of the class. Transfiguration was strenuous for him under normal circumstances, so there was certainly no chance he could have answered her off the top of his head.

"No? Then perhaps you should do some research on the subject for the next class, I believe two feet of parchment should suffice considering that you have not paid attention during this entire period," she finally broke from her boring stare to address the class, "While the rest of you have a twelve inch assignment on the three principles of freeform transfiguration and what one may do to avoid common mistakes, as we have discussed today. That will be all for class. You are dismissed."

Ted hung back as the others left the class. "I'm sorry, Professor McGonagall," he said, not waiting for the class to completely empty.

She appraised him for a moment before giving him a terse nod, "Just make sure it does not happen again." He quickly acknowledged the order with a nod. The professor's scolding demeanor left and she gave him a small smile.

The shift surprised him, but he had heard about how Professor McGonagall had a soft spot hidden somewhere. Ted had figured her hidden side was reserved for Gryffindors. "With the way Professor Flitwick is excited to be teaching you already, I was expecting you to be more attentive," she said. It sounded like it was a small soft spot. "While I may not have the camaraderie of a Hufflepuff, I do want you to know that I am here if you ever wish to discuss anything, not just whatever had you so distracted today."

"Thank you professor, it's nothing, well, not nothing, but nothing you can help with," he rambled with a blush growing on his face. She quirked an eyebrow, which set Ted off on more rambling that he couldn't reign back, "Well, not that you couldn't help, it's that I wouldn't ask you for help. Not you specifically! A general sort of you, you know? I'm not sure I should talk about it, it seems like something she would want kept secret if it all works out."

Ted shrunk into himself as he spoke, becoming too flustered to notice that Professor McGonagall was now smiling. He only noticed this when she spoke again, "Mister Tonks, Theodore," she gave him a moment to realize that she wasn't going to scold him, "While there are many rules involving edicate at this school, only untoward and harmful student interactions are punishable and I trust you to know the boundaries."

Her expression softened a bit further as she continued, "If a student needs assistance with such a situation, even outside of Hogwarts, the other professors and I would put the student's safety and education above all else."

Professor McGonagall's reassurance was as official was he expected her's to be, but it had done its job. He thanked her and excused himself from the classroom to hurry off, a little more resolute for his encounter with Andromeda. As he rounded the corner away from the transfiguration class, he heard her comment to herself, "Ach, I almost forgot to open up the floo network, they may be waiting for me." Ted didn't hear anything else as she was already hurrying in the opposite direction.

When Ted finally reached the classroom, he hesitated to cross the threshold with his foot hanging awkwardly a dozen centimeters off the stone. He meant to quickly locate Andromeda and sit with her, but his brain hitched and fumbled when he saw her laughing at something. The afternoon sun streamed through the windows, giving her such a celestial presence that everything else was mundane to him, even with two paper creatures fighting each other under the control of his classmates.

He slipped into the seat beside her. "Good to see you're well," he greeted her feeling a little over formal with his phrasing. The smile she gave him in return had a blush start to creep up his neck it was so welcoming.

Her response was cut off by Travis Barkowitz exclaiming about his paper tiger's victory over Edward Olligrimm's bear who was in turn cut off when a paper eagle swooped down and snatched them both off the pushed together desks. The bird dropped it's prey in the waste bin before taking perch on the rim. It loosed a raspy caw that silenced the class for Professor Phemli. "I do hope that wasn't either of yours assignments," the professor commented as he took his place by the blackboard.

"Right, speaking of your assignments, we are going to be talking about them before they are handed in. If at any point you feel like one of the questions you ask in unimportant, feel free to write an amendment to explain your new reasoning. I am doing this to emphasize that I believe in knowing how to survive over grades"

There was a murmur as half of the class dug about their bags for ink and quill. "While I believe grades are secondary to education, I will not hesitate to fail students who do not take this seriously. Tests you will be taking through out my class will be simulations that can result in harm for the unprepared; safe guards can only help so much," he intoned seriously.

Anyone who had yet to retrieve a quill did so while he wrote the scenario on the board as a reminder. The room was filled with a nervous silence. There was only the sound of the professor physically writing with the chalk. The paper eagle broke the tension by taking off and landing on Professor Phemli's head. "Get off you ruddy bird!" He growled and swatted at the avian construct as it clutched at his head, chalk still in the hand he swung about.

The bird gave an indignant squawk and retreated to a perch on one of the rafters. "You're supposed to go after trouble makers, not make trouble!" he called up. The professor flicked a bit of chalk into the bird's mouth with inhuman speed and accuracy, causing it to choke for a moment. "Keep this up, I'll recycle you before the week is out," he threatened. The bird quickly settled down.

By the time Professor Phemli brought his attention back to the class, the serious mood was gone and students had relaxed. Ted saw mirthful glint to his eyes. A glance to his left caught Andromeda's eyes. She had seen it as well. Ted believed the whole argument was staged, but he was unsure of the exact reason. After all, the professor had gone on about always having a plan, so why couldn't that apply to situations besides ones of great peril.

The class had spent ten minutes discussing the hippogriff scenario before it segwayed into a more in depth discussion of understanding a situation and prioritizing information. Harek and Perdita had slipped into the back of the classroom as professor Phemli was getting worked up, "You must understand that you cannot only pay attention to people and creatures first. With magic and magical beasts, things are not always what they seem. Intent is the most important aspect of casting a spell, but it is also the most important aspect of predicting outcomes. If you are able to understand what your opponent wants, you can adjust your actions appropriately, whether it is a beast wanting to eat you or a toddler trying to play hide and seek."

He paused and took a breath, "I apologize, I was getting a little off topic. I believe the original point was that just because a spell will solve your problem does not mean it is the best solution. Just because a bombarda makes a noise, does not mean you should use it to knock on a friend's door." A chuckle rose from a few of the students.

Professor Phemli turned his attention to the late arrivals, "Thank you, Miss Barnes and Mister Jameson, your timely intervention of my rant prevented me from forgetting to hand out your assignment." The same students that had chuckled were now groaning. Andromeda spared him an eye roll and refreshed her quill to write it down. "I want you and your partner to select four spells that would be useful when dealing with the hippogriff. The spells you pick are going to be demonstrated and explained to your best of your abilities, and then we shall collectively pick the four most useful to all learn.

You will be graded over the next week on three things: the reasoning for your spell selection, your ability to perform your spells, and finally, how well you learn the selected four spells. This is an exercise in understanding how to determine if a spell is appropriate. Now because we have two new students, I think it will be fine for you two to pair up. I would like to remind you that I will not hesitate to separate a partnership that is not conducive to learning."

The class took a moment to resettle into the lesson, but the rest of the class rolled on for Ted without anything of note outside the expectations of their Defense professor. He and Andromeda had a conversation using quietly passed notes that had them agree that Professor Phemli lived by a code of paranoia. Ted has also been nearly brow beaten into joining Andromeda and her two friends when they 'interrogated' the transfer students about their shopping trip.

"Look, I get that Perdita was planning on buying some muggle things for you and your best friends, but do I really need to hide and wait for them to sit on the couch?" Ted questioned as his crush all but shoved him into a broom closet and shut him in.

"It will be great," Andromeda assured him, "I'll be back to pull you out to surprise them. We'll all have a laugh."

After a long breath waiting to hear something else, Ted dropped his head against the door and grumbled to himself, "When she mentioned having a few good ideas for the broom closet on the third floor, did she not realize why I was so embarrassed? I mean, come on Ted!" His grumble had transformed into a self-chastising rant while he thumped his head on the door, "You kept glancing at her lips like a lovestruck idiot! Just couldn't keep your mind off of kissing her!"

The squeak from the other side of the door that Ted initially ignored in favor of his rant, "I mean, how could someone like her want to kiss someone who can barely keep himself together around their crush, and not to mention that… oh. Shite." He felt his face drain to white. His body kept moving and threw open the door while he mind was stuck hoping she wasn't still there.

His constant stream of denial grew from a thought to a hushed tone. Ted jammed himself against the locked door, bashing his nose hard enough to feel a trickle of blood. His panic turned to resignation and he slumped against the door. "Bugger me."

Then, the door jerked open only to suddenly stop with a jarring vibration. Ted was on his feet and around the door in time to see Andromeda hunch over in pain and stumble a few steps back. He moved to catch her but right as he was over her, she jerked herself upright. Ted couldn't pull back in time, so he took a headbutt to his already hurt nose.

With one hand holding his bleeding face, Ted fumbled around for his wand. He stood straight and took a breath to help him focus on the spell. He instead gagged and spat a mouthful of blood out. Apparently, he had been hit in the lip as well. He blinked away the tears and focused, " **Epifsky**." His mispronounced spell punched him in the face and added a split to both of his lips.

Ted looked for Andromeda, having lost track of her in his pain. He also took the moment clear his mouth for his next healing attempt. He could see her stomping in pain in the middle of the room. " **Episkey** ," he managed. He groaned as his injuries were forced from his body with as much pain as they had been inflicted with.

Ted made his way to Andromeda, "Hey, let me take a look at that."

She didn't react. She just stood there with her head tilted back, eyes closed, with her free hand clenching and unclenching, so Ted gently touched her shoulder.

Andromeda spun about, pulling him off balance. When he recovered, she had set herself in what must be a combat pose. Her wand was securely in her right hand, her bloody left was squeezed into a fist ready to strike. With her nearly drenched neck and collar, Andromeda was intimidating, but it was her wide, furious eyes that froze him in place.

Ted only managed to move after she relaxed and returned a hand to her nose. "Would you like me to fix your nose or would you prefer to go to the infirmary?" he asked.

She thought about it as he approached. Andromeda gave him a slight nod and braced herself with closed eyes and a held breath. "It will be painful for a short bit," Ted said in an attempt to confirm permission and reassure.

She glared at him and moved her hand. "Just do it already," she gritted out. There was blood in her teeth and it was still flowing down her face.

Her intensity almost forced him to give pause, but Ted quickly abided the scarily attractive girl, " **Episkey**."

Andromeda clenched her jaw. She ground out a word too low for him to understand and stomped her foot. It gave a tremendous crack. She ground her heel into the stone

It sounded like sifting gravel. She gave a small sigh and a nod to herself, "Much better," before turning back to Ted, "Thank you. I also apologize for losing my temper and swearing like that."

Ted stirred from his stunned state when he was addressed. He had an aside with himself in his dazed state, "What the hell? Ooh, wizard swears. Explains why everyone uses those silly Merlin's this and Morgana's that. Yeah, also explains my lack of detentions whenever I swore."

It was Andromeda's laughter that broke his fugue. She was so overcome with her laughter that Ted joined in. As the laughter trailed off, Andromeda spoke between gasps, "That was. An interesting. Confession."

The last of his laughter froze in his throat. A burning stone settled in his stomach. His jaw worked silently at forming a word that never came.

"If there had been less blood and pain, think I might have accepted," she said with a teasing tone that was completely lost on Ted. His daze had returned.

She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Ted nearly shouting, " **Tergeo, Tergeo, Tergeo,** " as he pointed his wand at everything red. A few of his spells struck tapestries in his over eagerness. Andromeda was taken aback by the wild glint in his eye as he threw about magic.

He spun to face her as his expression shifted in a blink to a more demure one before he visible steeled himself into a bold look that reminded her of the one she wore for her Evil E persona and family gatherings. She silently dubbed him Theo and let a small smirk out, after all, it wasn't often that she underestimated someone. "Andromeda Black, would you do me the pleasure of going on a date with me in Hogmead this weekend?"

"No," she responded. She took a moment to enjoy the way she held his heart in her hand. She quickly gave him reprieve, "Rather you should accompany me, as Perdita and Harek are leading the Evil E's on a shopping trip into London this weekend and I would prefer not to be the only one in the group without a partner."

Ted jawed silently before he nodded. "Like a double date?" he asked.

"Double date?" Andromeda asked after the unfamiliar term. She realized what he meant the second she asked, "No, it's more of a triple date, Kelly and Lucy are coming shopping as well."

"Huh. How is it going to work?"

"Well, I'd say we start off by locating everyone else. They were supposed to be here already," she was about to suggest searching for their friends when she was interrupted as the door swung open with a bang.

Lucy strutted in first and laughed as both of them froze in surprise. "See? I told you they would get together if we left them alone in a room for long enough."

"Gods, you're such a manipulative bitch," Kelly said as wrapped her arms around Lucy from behind, "I love that about you." Both girls were blushing lightly.

"Alright, we get it! You all are couples now!" harrumphed Harek as walked around the hugging couple standing in the way making eyes at each other. He flashed out a grin, "I want to see how the Evil E's react to the mundane stuff we bought."


End file.
